


To the Stars Above

by MyceliumMythos



Series: RWCT [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Haven Academy, Mention of Canon Events and Characters, Mistral - Freeform, Original Character(s), Same World Different Continent, Team ABRN - Freeform, Team SSSN - Freeform, Worldbuilding, monster fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-15 22:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 32,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8074804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyceliumMythos/pseuds/MyceliumMythos
Summary: Because surely, the kids of Beacon Academy weren't the only ones having fun that year.Join a new cast of characters, as well as a few familiar ones, as they begin their training at Haven Academy, explore the continent of Mistral, and fight to survive a set of threats all their own.





	1. Sunshine in the Winter

It was the tail end of a difficult winter season for the Vermoss Hunting Commune when their leader, Robin Nomarch, lost her right arm.  While making their rounds in the territory north of Mistral, they were blindsided by an unprecedentedly large pack of scalebacks emerging from beneath the snow.  They beasts attempted to attack the heart of their caravan, but the combined efforts of the commune’s hunters were enough to drive off the invading Grimm without any casualties.  This victory, however, did not come without a price. 

Nary Coline stood atop a boulder, looking out over the carnage.  Stretched out before her in the field was snow—snow which had been pristine and untouched upon their arrival half an hour earlier and was now trampled, splattered with human blood, and covered with the still-smoking and dissolving corpses of the lizard-like Grimm.  In the distance, the commune’s carpenters were already hard at work repairing the wagons that had been damaged in the attack while the medics were attempting to do the same for injured people. 

With all their enemies defeated, Nary supposed her part in this scene was done and those who could be of the most use had very different occupations than she.  However, she still clutched her bow tightly in hand and kept a watchful eye out.  She wouldn’t allow them to be taken unaware again.

A whistle at the base of the boulder drew Nary’s attention down to where two of her teammates, Budge and Warbler, were waiting for her.  Unlike Nary, who had made it out of the fight relatively unscathed thanks to her ranged attacks, the two men both showed signs of the attack.  Budge now sported a wide swathe of bandages over his torso where he’d been slashed by a scaleback’s claws and he was leaning on his oversized mace for support.  Warbler as well had his left arm bandaged and like Nary, he still held on tightly to his flute.

Nary leapt down from her peak to join Budge and Warbler, together three splashes of yellow, green, and blue amidst the grime of the battlefield and the grim winter landscape.  Warbler gave her a nod of greeting and said, “You didn’t return to camp after the battle.  How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” Nary said.  “Lots of trees around to shoot from and the scalebacks aren’t good at climbing.  How’s Robin?  I saw her go down in battle and did she really…did she really—”

“Lose an arm?” Budge supplied bluntly.  “Yeah, that happened.  Got snapped clean off when she was trying to get Chrys out of the line of fire."

“Thankfully, Chrys was right by her then, so she was able to start patching her up straight away,” Warbler added.  “She’s resting in the medivan right now.”

“Probably dosed up with enough drugs to put out a goliath,” Budge said.  “And boy, is she gonna be piiiiiiissed when she wakes up.  It is not gonna be easy to fight with a two-handed war axe with one hand.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can order her a new one from UPAC,” Warbler said.  “New arm, that is.  They’re developing better weaponized prosthetics for hunters every day and—Nary.”  He paused upon noticing the look of shame and dismay on their teammate’s face.  “Nary, what’s wrong?”

Nary clenched her bow harder until it nearly cut into her skin.  “This is my fault,” she said, face flushing.  “Robin lost her arm because of me.  I’m supposed to be your scout and I didn’t have a clue those scalebacks were there.”

“Nary, come on,” Warbler insisted, putting a hand on her shoulder.  “Maybe you made a mistake, but no one could have expected this.  Scalebacks usually sleep through the winter, and we almost never see them this far north.”

“Plus, I’m pretty sure Robin won’t blame you for this half as much as you blame yourself,” Budge said.  “She knows you can only do your best, and the best we can do for her now is be there for her when she’s up.  So come on, let’s get back to her.”

Only half comforted by her teammates’ words, Nary nodded and began to follow them listlessly.  She was so distracted by her own misery that she almost didn’t hear the wail that arose from across the clearing.

Robin Nomarch was already having kind of a bad day at the tail end of a bad season when her teammates showed up in camp with a baby in hand.  While just starting to sit up over the end of the commune’s medical wagon and dealing with both a hazy feeling from painkilling drugs and the fact that she had one less limb than she’d had that morning, Nary, Budge, and Warbler appeared before her with a ragged green bundle gingerly held by Nary.  While there was no lack of business to be taken care of in camp, the eyes of the commune were on them and this unusual situation.

Nary hesitated before her leader.  Robin’s ruddy colored hair was tied back in a messy ponytail and she was dressed in a dark tunic instead of her usual bright red vest, undoubtedly because of all the blood that had spilled over her due to her injury.  Her brown eyes were heavily shadowed from exhaustion and she could only sit up a little woozily, but Nary still had the utmost respect for this woman.  It was just a little awkward to come to her with this sort of issue.

“We…we found this baby in the woods,” Nary said, holding up the baby slightly.  “Not three feet from where one of the scalebacks was dissolving.”

“She was screaming loudly and didn’t seem too cold, so she can’t have been there for too long,” Warbler said.  “Someone might have even left her there in the time since we finished the battle.”

“Plus, there were no footprints around, even in the snow,” Budge said.  “Whoever left her didn’t want to leave a trace of themselves, and was able to do it.”

Robin considered them carefully.  Or perhaps she was so out of it, she simply needed to stare into space for a while before asking, in a distant tone, “So, what’s the question here?”

“Well,” Nary said, “what do we do with her?”

In spite of Dr. Anthem’s protests and with slow, ambling movements, Robin slid down from the back of the wagon and approached Nary.  She held out both her arms towards the hunter, then, remembering one was only the upper arm, shakily retracted it.  After exchanging glances with Budge and Warbler, Nary slowly handed over the bundled up baby to her leader.  In the silence of the moment, the rest of the hunters huddled around and looked down into the infant’s face.

In Nary’s arms, the baby had already ceased her crying.  In Robin’s arms, with the faces of Team RNBW peering down at her curiously, she smiled back at them, her yellow eyes lighting up.

“You know,” Warbler said, “she’s kind of cute.  In a smudgy kind of way.”

“She’s really small,” Budge said, “but if she can survive being dumped out here, I bet she could be really tough.”

Nary looked up at Robin, awaiting her reaction.

Robin caught a glance of Nary’s own yellow eyes and smiled a little wider.  “You know, I’ve always liked kids,” Robin said.  “Didn't know if i ever really wanted them, but now, I guess I can see the appeal.  Anybody got a good sunshiney name?”

The baby stirred slightly in her arm, unaware that she had just been adopted as the latest member of the Vermoss Hunting Commune.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Team RNBW (Rainbow): Graduates of Haven Academy  
> Robin Nomarch  
> Nary Coline  
> Budge Melopes  
> Warbler Dalton
> 
> Scaleback: komodo dragon-esque Grimm


	2. Citrine

In the sun-drenched summer fields of southern Mistral, a lone girl sat picking flowers, putting some aside in her satchel for later use and weaving others into chains and crowns.  She carried out her work paying close attention, and with each plant she plucked, she said its name aloud and recorded it in her memory.  Beside her on the ground also lay a spring green and silver-colored hoe, a tool carried by the girl at all times for just in case she needed to get her hands dirty.

The girl could hardly have looked more at home among the flowery field.  With golden-blonde hair tied in a messy braid and her yellow eyes bright and attentive, she looked like a ray of sun herself.  In her yellow top, orange-and-green patched skirt, and dark brown leggings, she was well camouflaged in her surroundings as well. 

“Let’s see.  Here’s another dragon’s tongue,” she said, reaching for a red flower, “a midday culprit,” a yellow one, “a captain’s crest,” a green one tinged with red, “and a violet,” which was blue.  She was going to be able to make something lovely with her flowers from today.  That would certainly yield some good luck in her future, just at a time when she needed it most.

_Now, if only—_

The girl’s head snapped up at the sound of branches snapping beneath heavy feet.  When she looked, she found a young zilla, towering at ten feet tall with heavy plating over its skull and sticking up in spines down to the tip of its tail.  It was shoving aside saplings as if they were errant stalks of grass and setting its sights on the girl. 

“Hey there little guy,” the girl whispered, smiling at it.  “Fancy seeing you so far from the sea.”

It really did seem fortuitous, finding a Grimm like this so far from its natural habitat, just at a time when she needed a good fight.  The girl _knew_ making those crowns was good luck.  As the zilla stopped to examine the area, the girl rose to her feet, picking up her hoe along with her.  Responding to her subtle hand movements, the hoe began to shift and elongate.  The handle lengthened until it ended in a sharp point and the head of the hoe twisted around and expanded until it formed a sharp wedge on the side, turning the gardening tool into a tool of destruction.

Citrine Vermoss stood amongst the flowers with her poleaxe, Harbinger’s Almanac, slung over her shoulder and stared down the creature of Grimm.  Locking eyes with her, the zilla let out a roar and began to charge at a lumbering pace.  She charged at the beast as well, intending to keep this fight as far as possible from her afternoon’s work. 

Citrine had never faced off against a zilla before.  The commune rarely made it as far as the seaside where zillas usually made their homes, and even when they did, they were usually more concerned with an intrusive appendage from a leviathan or a jet of water from an unamal directed at their camp.  Citrine had, however, learned about zillas from books and from Budge’s undoubtedly exaggerated stories of Team RNBW’s conquests of the species.  While the prospect of a new challenge did rattle her nerves a little, she felt confident in her ability to take this sucker down.

She got within a few feet of the zilla, just within range of a lunging bite, before making an abrupt turn and flanking it from the left.  After scoring a hit up its leg and side, she hopped over the tail and attacked the right in the same manner before dashing away.  The zilla roared in pain as Citrine stopped before it again and spun her axe, its form shifting into a rifle.  She pulled out a clip of fire dust ammunition and slapped it in before shooting a few rounds into the zilla’s underbelly. 

As smoke rose up from the Grimm, Citrine turned Harbinger back to its axe form and took a running leap at the zilla, intending to take its head off in one clean sweep.  However, when she closed in and the smoke cleared, the zilla ducked forward and slammed its tail up, shooting projectile plating at her at an incredible speed.  Citrine had less than a second to curl up around her axe before the plates battered her around the edges. 

The attack knocked her backwards, but she was mostly unharmed thanks to her aura.  It was still an attack that had landed when it shouldn’t have, however, and when she rolled back on her feet to face the zilla again, she couldn’t help but feel the battle was a little more personal.

“Oh, so that’s how you wanna play it, huh?” Citrine asked, cocking her head to the side.  “Well, I can play hard too.” 

Once again, she turned Harbinger to its rifle form, but instead of reaching for another clip, she simply held out a hand over the ground.  The flowers and grass first began to drain of their color, then wilt, then dry up until they crumbled away into dust, and as they did, an orb of glowing, faintly green energy appeared beneath Citrine’s hand.

When she felt satisfied with the amount collected, and when the zilla came charging at her again, thrashing its arms in preparation of attack, Citrine poured the energy into her rifle.  She took a moment to aim straight into the mouth of the Grimm.  Then she took a longer moment, waiting till the monster was close enough for her to see the yellows of its eyes. 

“Boom,” Citrine whispered, then fired off her semblance.

The sun-drenched summer field was slightly less idyllic when Citrine left it than when she had arrived.  Both the dark stain left by the dissolving zilla and the dead patch created by her drain would mar the land for some time to come, leaving it unlikely to recover before the chill of the fall season right over the horizon took its toll, but Citrine was able to leave in good spirits knowing she’d gotten exactly what she wanted.  Fresh stems and woven crowns alike tucked safely in her satchel, she skipped away through the forest towards her traveling home, hoping that the rejection letter from Haven Academy would be waiting there for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Citrine Vermoss: an orphan child raised by a traveling commune of huntsmen and huntresses, informally trained to have a great deal of familiarity with axe handling, wilderness survival, and Grimm combat  
> Harbinger's Almanac: Citrine's weapon; a hoe/poleaxe/rifle  
> Drain: Citrine's Semblance; drains life from plants to be used in energy blast attacks; can be used in conjunction with Harbinger's rifle form for more concentrated attacks  
> Zilla: bipedal reptilian Grimm, normally found living by the sea  
> Leviathan: sea-dwelling many-tentacled Grimm, a major hindrance for sea travel  
> Unamal: water-spewing sea dragon-esque Grimm, a major hindrance for sea travel
> 
> And here's our girl! But where's her team? And what could their team name be?


	3. Wagon Sweet Wagon

For the past 22 years, the Vermoss Hunting Commune had provided a living for its members by allowing them to put their varied skills to use around Mistral and the surrounding territories.  They scouted locations near the kingdom to report on their viability as potential outposts.  They escorted families or corporate representatives from village to village.  Most frequently, they patrolled the Mistral Trade Route—the quickest path between Mistral and Vale and the only thing that ensured Misral was not as isolated as Atlas—and eliminated nests of Grimm that formed up too near to it.

Two decades ago, it had seemed like a worthwhile venture for the fresh-faced Haven graduates who made up the commune’s fighting force, as well as the eclectic collection of cooks, medics, craftsmen, and traders who made up the rest of the community, because two decades ago, aircraft for commercial use that were not only dependable but capable of out-flying a persistent nevermore had seemed like a far-flung idea. 

With the development and rise in availability of air buses, which were able to transport four times the clients as they could in a fraction of the time, the commune’s business model had come under fire.  They could still get orders from cheaper clients, and there was always work along the trade route, but gone were the days of fat-pursed clients willing to pay out of pocket for the trip’s worth of ammo when they could travel considerably more quickly and comfortably in an air bus.  Many members of the commune might have even sought other employment if not for the one thing they all had in common—that little snow-bundled orphan they all called “daughter,” who carried the name of their community.

Just before the sun began to set, Citrine Vermoss found her way back to where the commune’s collection of wagons were settling down.  She was first spotted by Thea Thyme, one of the carpenters who had pulled the job of setting up the projectors for their forcefields for the night. 

“Hey there, girly!” Thea said, pausing her work to ruffle Citrine’s hair with a heavily calloused hand.  “I was starting to worry you might miss the last call for camp.”

“Aww, no need to worry,” Citrine assured her, although the worry wasn’t entirely unfounded.  In her rebellios phase, she had spent entire nights outside the safety of the defensive field that protected the commune, and often without telling anyone she would be gone.  “I just got caught up with a new acquaintance while picking flowers.”

“You _what?_   Citrine!”

Citrine laughed as she was confronted by the pink-haired field medic Chrys Anthem who was Thea’s partner in projector duty that night.  She knew she shouldn’t make light since the poor woman had been at wit’s end trying to keep her healthy since the girl learned to walk, but really, her bristly, protective anger had started to seem a little funny after Citrine grew to stand a full head taller than her.

“What have you been up to?” Chrys demanded, gesturing at the rips and tears in Citrine’s shirt where the zilla’s plates had hit her.  “Have you been fighting Grimm on your own again?”

“Like I said,” Citrine shrugged.  “Just making new friends.”

Chrys sighed in exasperation.  “At least learn to take better care of your clothes if you’re going to be so reckless,” she scolded her.  “You won’t always have someone else to pick up after you.”

“Yeah, and I also won’t always have someone bugging me about how my clothes look,” Citrine joked.  “By the way,” she added before Chrys could scold her further, reaching into her bag, “I got these for you guys!”  She pulled out a flower for each of them, tucking a golden leony into Chrys’s front pocket and a vibrant red clover behind an ear on Thea’s fuzzy shaved head.

Thea beamed, saying, “Oh, how lovely!  Thanks, missy.”

Chrys examined the flower and had to try very hard not to let her stern expression be intruded upon by the adoration she used to show when Citrine would bring her presents as a—considerably sweeter and less snarky—little girl.  “This…this is yes, very sweet,” the hardboiled medic said, practically choked up.  “But it does not excuse—”

“Love you too, guys!” Citrine said, skipping off.  “Got more flowers to deliver!”

Making her rounds in the camp, Citrine made sure that everyone had a flower from out in the fields.  She gave dionyn daises to the cooks, Peppa and Salina.  She gave the twilight knight to Copper the blacksmith.  She gave the one rare foxheart lily she’d found to the tailor Calico, for just in case Chrys was going to make her get her clothes repaired for the third time that month.  Then after she’d visited everyone else, she found her way over to the campfire where three members of Team RNBW were gathered.  Thankfully, Budge was already sitting down and after tiptoeing up behind him, Citrine plopped the captain’s crest flower crown on his head.

“Surprise!” she sang.

Budge Melopes, a mountain of a man with more scars on his face than Citrine had years, gingerly reached up to touch his new crown before looking back at her with utter glee.

“You made this for me?” he gasped.  “Citrine, _thank you!_   I love it!”

Citrine beamed and leaned into the hug he offered that might have been literally bone-crushing if not for her aura.  “You’re welcome,” she said.  “And don’t worry,” she added, turning to Robin and Nary, “I made one for each of you too!”

While all the members of the commune had had some hand in raising, educating, and caring for Citrine, it was no secret that the members of Team RNBW were especially fond of her, and that Citrine had been intent on following in their footsteps since she was old enough to toddle around after them.  The hunters who made the commune’s business possible were at its heart, after all, and Citrine had always wanted to be one of them.  She’d always thought they wanted her to be one of them too, which was why it was so confusing that they seemed intent on sending her away.

“Thank you, Citrine,” said Nary Coline in her soft voice.  The petite, yellow-eyed woman picked up the midday culprit crown to examine it after Citrine dropped it on her head.  “You haven’t made these in ages.”

“Yeah, what’s the special occasion, kid?” asked Robin Nomarch, the team and commune’s leader.  Citrine put the dragon’s tongue crown on her short, ruddy hair and then knelt beside her to weave a spare flower into the wrist of her prosthetic arm.  Nary smiled at the gesture.

“Oh, no reason,” Citrine said, going to sit by the campfire across from them.  “I was just out collecting seeds when the mood struck me.  Where’s Warbler?  I don’t want his to wilt before he can see it.”

“He went with Saffron to see if there’s any mail at the outpost for us today,” Robin told her.

“What?  Again?”  Citrine shook her head in disbelief.  “He just went to check _yesterday_.”

“Yeah, well, he’s excited to see if you’ve gotten into Haven,” Budge said.  “Probably more excited than you.”

“I am _plenty_ excited to see my results,” Citrine insisted.  “I’ll just only be _happy_ if they say I’m rejected.”  Robin, Nary, and Budge all rolled their eyes in unison at their daughter’s teenage rebellion, which was all the more agitating to Citrine, since she felt she’d already made her case on the matter as clearly as she could.  “Look, you guys _know_ I don’t want to go to Haven,” she pointed out.  “It’s pointless when I could just stay with the commune and keep learning from you guys.”

“Geez.  If you think going to Haven is pointless, when there are some kids who would literally kill to go learn there, then you really do need school,” Robin laughed.

“Be nice, Robin,” Nary scolded her gently, putting a hand on Robin’s shoulder.  “She’s never been to Mistral Proper before.  She’s just nervous.”

“I am not!” Citrine protested loudly.  “I’m not nervous.  I just know I’m already super strong.  I’ve been training with you for more than a decade.  I’ve helped you guys out on a bunch of missions already.  I even killed a zilla on my own today!”

Nary frowned, worried by that statement.  “A zilla?” she echoed.  “You saw a zilla this far inland?  What was it doing?”

“Yeah, and how big was it?” asked Robin, who seemed more excited than worried about the prospect of her daughter going toe to toe with a monster.

“It must have been at least 10 feet tall!” Citrine exclaimed.  “And I took it down like—”

“What, only a 10 footer?” Budge interrupted.  “That’s hardly bigger than me.”

“Yeah, that’s a baby zilla by any account,” Robin nodded.  “We call those zukis, and any hunter worth their salt can take down one of those without even wrinkling their shirt.”

At that, Citrine couldn’t help but blush slightly.  Why did everyone seem so concerned with the state of her clothes?  “I still don’t see why you guys can’t keep training me by yourselves,” she said agitatedly.  “Robin, you already taught me how to use Harbinger like a master.  Nary, you taught me all about wilderness survival.  Budge, you’ve drilled me on the weakness of every Grimm you’ve ever fought.  And Warbler, he—”

“Citrine!  Ciiiiitriiiiiine!”

The hunters all stood and turned as through the camp ran Warbler Dalton, his lengthy black braid whipping in the wind behind him.  Approaching them at a rapid pace, Budge grabbed him just to ensure he didn’t accidentally trip into the fire.  Like Nary, it was rare for Warbler to get too excited, but when he did, he tended to go overboard with it, such as the week leading up to Citrine’s 10th birthday when they’d given the girl her first axe.  He’d spent the entire week squealing and wringing his hands every time he saw her just in anticipation.

Warbler hardly even stopped to give Budge a kiss on the cheek and greet him, “Hello, dear,” before rushing up to Citrine and shoving something into her hands.  “Citrine, it’s here!” he exclaimed.  “Go on, open it!”

“Wait, is that from—”

“It’s here already?”

“Are they sending these things in scrolls now?  I got mine on Haven letterhead!”

“Come on Citrine, let us see, let us see!”

As the rest of Team RNBW began to gather around Citrine and the commotion even drew the attention of other members of the commune, Citrine examined what Warbler had handed her.  It was a small scroll—cheaply made, it felt like, like what many people used to send prerecorded messages to locations outside of the kingdom that normal mail might not be able to reach intact.  Its two halves were joined together by a translucent sticker bearing the emblem of Haven.  Citrine looked at the scroll, waiting to be cracked open, then looked up in the shiny, expectant faces of her adoptive parents.

“If I’m accepted, are you really going to make me leave?” Citrine asked, her voice coming out unexpectedly quiet.

“You mean, are we going to make you attend one of the best institutions in the world for learning to hone your craft as a hunter?” Robin snorted.  “You bet your last lien, kid.”

“Yeah, as great as we are, you can’t just keep hanging around us forever,” Budge said.  “At least get out there to compare and contrast a little.”

“Honestly Citrine, my time at Haven Academy was some of the best of my life,” Warbler gushed, as he often had in the past when speaking of the school.  “If I hadn’t gone to Haven, I never would have trained under my musical master, I never would have gained the confidence I needed to continue on as a hunter, and of course, I never would have met my teammates!  My husband!  You absolutely have to go to Haven, Citrine!”

Citrine gulped nervously and looked to Nary for any sort of assistance.  Nary was the most thoughtful of the group, and she had always been willing to hear out and address the few reservations Citrine was willing to voice.

However, in this case, Nary simply gave her a nod and a smile and said, “Even if you leave, you can always come home.  We’ll be there for you if you do.”

That hardly felt as helpful as Nary must have thought it was.  Biting her lip, Citrine slowly began to peel away the seal on the scroll.  In her mind, she knew that there was no way Haven should want her after her performance in their remotely administered entrance exam.  While she hadn’t been able to fake a bad performance in the physical exam with Team RNBW watching to make sure their hesitant daughter put her best foot forward, Citrine had been able to pencil in every possible wrong answer on the written exam.  Surely no hunting academy would want a student who didn’t even know a beowolf’s three most vulnerable points, right?

Surely, she wouldn’t be ditched by another family, right?

Citrine pulled the scroll open, and after a moment’s flickering and adjustment, the small holographic figure of an old man in emerald green robes with a long grey beard appeared and looked up at her.  “Greetings to Citrine Vermoss,” the figure said.  “I am Professor Merle Wyltt of Haven Academy.  I am very pleased to inform you that you have been accepted for training and study…”

She stopped listening at that point.  The hunters seemed to as well, based on the cheers and congratulations that immediately rose from them.  For them, it was one of the proudest moments of their lives, to hear that their daughter was strong and skilled enough to be accepted to Haven Academy, but for Citrine herself and the knot in her stomach, she couldn't help but think of it as a trap or some kind of trick.  All she could do was let the message play out mutely as around them, the camp’s forcefield defenses went up, penning all of them in for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaaaat, Citrine got into Haven? What a surprise!! Wonder what kind of wacky characters she'll meet there! Maybe we'll even meet some of them next chapter!


	4. Blow West, Young Woman

The largest town Citrine had ever stayed in was Sirocco, a town to the southeast of Mistral Proper, population 832.  Some of the commune’s wagons had been severely damaged by a pair of rampaging boarbatusks and they had been forced to stay there for five days while waiting for replacement parts to arrive.  Citrine had hated almost every moment of it.  Whether she was in one of the buildings—which were _everywhere_ in towns, as it turned out—or even out in the streets, with the buildings glaring down at her, she had felt like there wasn’t enough room. 

Then there were all the people, hundreds of unfamiliar faces when she came from a community of less than 20.  She didn’t know their names.  She didn’t know their intentions.  She hadn’t felt comfortable having any of them at her back.

Perhaps the only thing she had liked about staying in Sirocco was the food.  Even a remote location like that had farms and trade routes that allowed it to have infinitely more variety than Citrine was used to having on the road.  Team RNBW had taken the opportunity to try to spoil her with their favorite sweets in an attempt to take the edge off their time there, but Citrine had still spent the entire five days feeling like she couldn’t even breathe properly.

Citrine would have traded a year in Sirocco for her first day in Mistral.  The city was like nothing she had ever seen before, and not in a good way.  The buildings there were broader and taller than those in outlying villages by leaps and bounds; gargantuan structures she had been able to see from miles away that could match a full grown zilla in size.  Just staring up at the roofs some of them gave her a sense of vertigo and filled her with paranoia that they might spontaneously topple over at any moment.

Then there were the people.  There was a dizzying amount of people, with more of them casually walking around in one street than there might be in the average village.  Moreover, there was the sheer variety in what they looked like and what they wore.  These were people who had more than the village tailor servicing them in terms of clothes and more than their own pair of scissors to cut their hair.  There were also more faunus than Citrine had ever imagined existing.  There were no faunus members of the commune and throughout all their travels, there was only one faunus she really came to know, a mouse-eared woman named Riz who ran a trading post with her husband.  It was overwhelming that everywhere she looked, she could catch a flash of antlers or scales or a prehensile tail.

On top of all those things that expanded on what she knew, there was also so much of Mistral she had no experience with, mostly concerning how everyone got around.  There were cars and trucks and buses, street signs always attempting to tell her where she was and light up signs always attempting to tell her when to walk and when to stop, and everyone around her seemed to know exactly where they were going while she fumbled with every step.

It was worse than not being able to breathe.  It was having every sense overwhelmed at once and not even being able to think straight. 

It was also no wonder that less than half an hour after being dropped off at the gates of Mistral, with Citrine insisting to her family that she could find her own way to the air bus to Haven, she was hopelessly lost in some dirty, poorly paved back road.  Even the scroll the commune had bought her as a school entrance present seemed to be useless at doing the _one thing_ Citrine had tried to ask it to do so far, which was tell her where to go. 

“Stupid machine,” she grumbled, shoving the scroll into her pocket.  Citrine scowled and set her eyes on the horizon.  If she could just figure out which way was north, then maybe she could make a general shot for Haven.  Unfortunately, it was midday and hard to tell which way the sun was going. 

Moreover, in the area of Mistral where she’d wound up, Citrine couldn’t help but notice a number of shady figures loitering around the streets who were definitely noticing her as well.  They were the type of people the commune used on pass on overgrown back roads, people who always had at least three knives on hand and none in plain sight, people who would always stare at the commune with a look that was equal parts hungry and cautious of their numbers.

They were those types of people, except now they were together, and Citrine was alone.

Well, alone except for the folded up gardening tool inexplicably slung across her back.

Citrine almost wished—she _almost wished_ one of them would try to make a move on her.  She almost wished one of them would give her an excuse to pull out Harbinger.  She almost wished one of them would give her an excuse to do what she knew she could do well, so just for a moment, she could stop—

“Excuse me, do you—WAH!”

At the lightest tap on her shoulder, Citrine grabbed Harbinger’s Almanac off her back and whipped around, extending it towards the person behind her as a poleaxe and fully intending to make an example of them if they were looking to cause trouble.  However, she was quickly forced to lower both her weapon and the fearsome expression on her face when she realized her supposed assailant was only a boy about her own age who had a surprised expression and was holding up his hands in surrender.

“Hey, hey there!” he laughed.  He had a nervous tint to his voice as the point of the poleaxe hovered an inch away from his throat.  “Friendly?  Friendly?”

Citrine decided to withhold judgment on that until she’d gotten a good look at him.  The first thing she noticed about him was the weapon on his back, a collapsible bow and a quiver of color-coded arrows.  In other words, a ranged weapon and a solid looking one at that.  If he wanted to attack her for any obvious reason, he could have already done it from a rooftop.

The second thing she noticed about him was his hair, which was long, straight, and silver in color, and also matched the pair of silver fox ears that rose from the top of his head.  Despite his unassuming surrender, he watched her carefully with his violet eyes which stood out vibrantly on his pale face.  It was honestly odd to Citrine how pale and smooth his skin was, especially when her own life out in the sun had left her tawny, freckled, and marked with more than a few scars.  Although she felt slightly suspicious of someone who looked as soft as that hanging out in a neighborhood like this, it wasn’t in a way that made her feel like he was going to attack her. 

Citrine stowed her axe and offered a reserved, “Sorry,” to the boy instead.  “I wasn’t expecting to be approached.”

The boy smiled at her and said, “It’s okay, I understand.  It is kind of a seedy neighborhood, and I’m guessing you’re…new here?”

She cocked her head curiously.  “Yeah, I just got here today,” she said.  “How’d you know?”

“Well, the fact that this is the third time I’ve seen you walk this block was kind of a tip-off,” he joked.  “Plus, that hair-trigger reaction, the giant axe, and the time of year, I’m guessing you’re also here for Haven?”

“Yeah, I’m—”  She cut herself off and looked at the boy in a new light.  “Wait, are you a Haven student too?” she asked excitedly.

“I will be soon,” he nodded.  “I’m starting this week.”

“Great!” Citrine exclaimed.  “Do you have any idea where the school is?”

“I _am_ a native of Mistral, so I should hope so,” the boy said, tipping his chin up proudly.  “In fact, I was just about to offer you help finding your way around when you pulled your axe on me.”

“Well, I’m a native of pretty much all the wild lands around Mistral, so I’m used to reacting to everything like that,” Citrine said, trying to match his casual tone and hiding her embarrassment over another big city faux pas.

“Really?”  It was the boy’s turn to look at her curiously.  “You’re from the wild lands?  So you don’t…”

“Don’t what?” Citrine asked when he trailed off.

He shook his head and said, “Nothing,” before offering a hand to her.  “I’m Ware, by the way,” he said.  “Ware Sterling.”

“Hi, Ware.”  She took his hand and, keeping in mind that this complete stranger was her only ticket out of here, gave him her biggest smile.  “I’m Citrine.”

With Citrine’s permission, Ware began to lead them down the street in a direction he promised would lead them to Haven Academy and she followed, mostly basing her trust on the belief that her axe could take his bow in a close combat brawl on any day of the week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, oh man, who's this Ware dude? Could he possibly be a member of Citrine's future team? What color words out there can you make with CW?


	5. Haven Academy, Class of XXXX

Before meeting Ware, Citrine had been under the impression that she was a socially gifted person.  Talking to others had always come easily to her, and the conversations she used to have with the members of the commune were filled with jokes and laughter and honesty fueled by familiarity and an easy repertoire. 

Her first conversation with Ware utterly flipped that impression on its head and made her want to never speak to another person as long as she lived.

“So, you’re from outside the kingdom?  Anywhere in particular?” Ware asked.

“Kind of like, everywhere, I guess," Citrine said flatly.  "Except for the worst parts.  We never went there.”

“What do you mean by ‘worst parts?’  I was under the impression it was all pretty bad out there.”

“Yeah, but some of it was like…a lot worse.  Lots of really huge Grimm there, like…entire herds of deberans the size of houses.”

“I’ve never heard of a deberan before.  What’s that?”

“Um, well, it’s a Grimm.  It's got horns and it’s about the size of a house.”

Citrine gulped nervously at that last answer.  For some reason, she was having immense trouble giving more than vague summaries of everything he asked her about.  Maybe it was because he was asking so much and she didn’t know exactly what he wanted to hear, or she didn’t know exactly how much she wanted to share.  If he was starting at Haven in her class, it was possible they could know each other for the next four years.  They might even be on the same team.  She should have every reason to trust and want to get to know him.

At the same time, Citrine was hardly used to talking to strangers at all, let alone strangers her own age who could potentially be _friends_. She also knew that even teams were no guarantee of lasting relationships.

 _Maybe,_ she thought, _I’ll feel better about this if I can get to know him too._

“So, you’re from around here?” she asked.

Ware’s fox ears twitched a little.  “Yeah, right around here,” he said in a noncommittal tone.

Citrine side-eyed him.  “And…your family?”

“Yep,” Ware said.  “They’re from around here too.”

Citrine huffed.  She knew she was being vague because this was a weird situation for her, but Ware seemed like he was doing it on purpose. 

 _Well, if he doesn’t want to talk,_ Citrine thought, _maybe we can communicate in another way._

As they turned around a corner, Citrine suddenly jumped in front of Ware and shouted, “Think fast!”  She pulled out Harbinger again and swung it at him, knowing the worst it could do as a hoe to someone with active aura was give them a bad bump on the head.  However, it didn’t come to a bump.  It came to a crack as Citrine smashed Harbinger into the crumbling pavement where Ware had been standing a split second ago, and a series of clicks as he pulled out his own bow along with a red-tipped arrow to aim directly at her face.  Citrine stared down the shaft unflinchingly.  Ware stared her back down, then smirked and let out a laugh.

“You know, I’ve never had someone come at me with a hoe before,” he said, stowing his weapons.  “It takes a unique kind of person to try that on me.”

“See?” Citrine said.  “Isn’t that more helpful to know than where I’m from?”

“I suppose it is,” Ware said.  “You know, as an archer, I really do appreciate a… _straight shooter_.”  He waggled his eyebrows at her in an obviously practiced and obviously cheesy way as Citrine both burst out laughing and smacked him in the arm. 

Conversation came more easily to them after that once they stopped talking about all the things that were hard for them to say.  Weapons were an easy topic for any hunter, and as they passed through the rest of the length of the city, Citrine gave him a full walkthrough on Harbinger’s different forms.  She even gave a demonstration of its rifle form when they passed through another street filled with shady characters who were squaring up the blonde country bumpkin and the soft silver dandy as potential targets.

“I definitely prefer the axe form,” Citrine said after shooting a stray bottle off a garbage can 30 paces away and sending certain seedy onlookers scattering.  “My master is an axe wielder too so that’s my strength, but you can’t have _just_ an axe, you know?”

“Yeah,” Ware nodded.  “I get that.”

He told her his bow’s name was Cryptelum.  As Citrine had suspected, all of his arrows were color coded for the kind of dust they were infused with.  The arrows were meant to be ultra-durable, meaning he could easily reclaim them in fights that left a body, but for in case he ran out of ammo, Cryptelum could also be split down the middle into twin short swords.

“Because I do prefer the bow, but you can’t have _just_ a bow,” Ware joked.

Citrine laughed.  “You know, I don’t think I’ve heard about a lot of master archers in Mistral,” she said.  "One of my parents was the only one i knew."  There was a lot more cultural leaning towards melee weapons in the kingdom, after all.  “Did you study abroad?  Ooh, have you been to Vale?  I hear they have lots of good marksmen there!”

Ware hesitated and began saying, “Actually, I was…” before stopping in his tracks and trailing off.  “Oh, hey,” he said, pointing to the end of the street.  “Looks like we’re here.”

Where he was pointing, there was at last a break in the city where the seemingly endless stream of towering buildings gave way a port bordering the Meranian Sea.  Catching sight of the broad stretch of water, Citrine felt her breath catch a little.  She had been to the sea a few times before, but it never failed to impress her.  The Meranian was one of Mistral’s natural defenses after all, and one of the reasons they were able to found the kingdom on the narrow bridge between the north and south of the continent.

As cool as that was to think about, Citrine also couldn’t help but look at the sea without remembering that just a few miles off the coast was a certain island home to a certain combat academy; a certain island she’d be stuck on for the next four years.  Probably with that group of people congregated at that dock up ahead.

Her stomach turned at the thought of both being caught somewhere so small and being surrounded by so many strangers, but it felt at least a little better to already have—

“Hey,” Ware said, poking her in the shoulder.  “How about you go on ahead of me?”

Citrine blanched.  “What?”

“I was planning on hanging back for a while before joining the crowd,” he told her, “so you should probably just go on ahead.”

“I mean, if you’re waiting for something or someone, I wouldn’t mind waiting with you,” she offered in what she hoped was a casual tone. “I’m in no hurry.”

At her offer, Ware smiled down at her with that same smile he wore whether he had an axe to his throat or was holding an arrow to someone’s head and said, “No.  You should go.”

Her mouth dropped open for a split second.  Then she spun to hide the angry and embarrassed flush in her cheeks and shouted, “Fine!  I’ll go!” before storming off down the street towards the rest of her soon-to-be classmates.

Although Citrine was understandably annoyed by Ware’s abrupt turn and was fuming as she approached the crowd, it was hard for that to be the only thing on her mind upon seeing all the other students.  Even after traversing the length of Mistral, the gathered hunters-in-training were the most colorful collection of people she had ever seen and standing on the edge of the group, she could already make out a number of big personalities. 

There was a flustered boy with pink hair in a hopeless chase with a girl on a hoverboard who seemed to have stolen something of his and was teasing him about it.  There was a girl in a white tanktop and camo cargo shorts trying to pick a fight with a tall, buff green haired boy who was trying his best to back away from the situation.  There was a blond monkey faunus perched atop a nearby lamppost who was being a little cavalier about where he dropped the banana peels from his midday snack. 

Then there was the purple haired boy in an oddly spotless white suit who already seemed to have a crowd of admirers, either for his impeccably neat looks or the fat black wallet he was casually waving about.

From across the crowd, Citrine could clearly make him out saying, “ _Really,_ you’ve never been on an air yacht before?  How _ludicrous!_   My parents own a _fleet_ of them for personal use, so I can hardly _imagine_ never having been on one!”

Based on that alone, she guessed the admirers weren’t there for his personality.

“Hey.”

It took Citrine a moment to realize the figure who had just stepped up beside her was speaking to her.  Already feeling like she was going to regret this, she turned to look at boy with stylishly messy blue hair, a red blazer, and, for some reason, goggles.  He wore an easy, confident grin and waited for her response in what seemed like a very stiff, practiced pose.

“Hhhhey,” Citrine said slowly, regarding him cautiously.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” he said, pointing to Harbinger, “is that a hoe on your back?”

He just wanted to ask about her weapon?  Maybe this guy wasn’t too bad.  “Uh, yeah, this is my—”

“Because I am really digging you!”  The boy posed again to wink and shoot dual finger guns at Citrine.

Lip curling with disgust, Citrine felt she would completely justified in shooting a real gun at him.  With his aura, it probably wouldn’t kill him.  If she didn’t aim anywhere vital.

“But all joking aside, the name’s Neptune,” the boy said, bowing and offering his outstretched palm to Citrine.  “The pleasure is all mine.”

Thankfully, her decision on how exactly to deal with the situation—it was a toss-up between hit, shoot, and slash—was called for her when a fresh banana peel flew out of the sky and landed square on the back of Neptune’s bare neck.  Leaping up from his bow, he scrambled to swat the peel away while shouting, “Ew, ew, ew, ew!  Gross!”

Above them all, the monkey faunus started laughing uproariously and swung to hang from his tail.

“Hey, dude!” Neptune shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at the faunus.  “Not cool!  I was trying to make a move!”

“Maybe you should have moved faster,” the faunus called down.  “Then I wouldn’t have hit you!”

“Oh, it is _on_ , dude!” 

As Neptune pulled the gun off his back and started aiming it at the faunus, who was preparing his own onslaught of banana peels, Citrine quickly backed off, trying to disappear into the crowd.  At that point, she didn’t care if it made her feel claustrophobic to be in the thick of so many people, just so long as it kept her from standing out and having another weird encounter.

This plan faltered about two steps in when she accidentally bumped shoulders with someone in the crowd.  Citrine had just begun to apologize while trying to make her way further in when that person shot out a hand and gripped her shoulder.  Their long, bony fingers held her in place with surprising strength as she looked up into the gaunt face of a boy with deepset red eyes and the short, stubbled remains of a head of black hair.  The gaunt boy looked at her with an impossibly wide and malicious grin and then, without warning, _phased right through her._

Citrine had to turn to make sure the boy had come out her other side—that she hadn’t simply imagined him altogether—and sure enough, there he was, still giving Citrine the evil eye even as he phased through other unsuspecting students.  It was entirely unnerving to know there was someone with a semblance like that in their midst.  It was even worse for Citrine to realize that her entire team for the next four years might consist of the gaunt boy, flirty goggles, and “you should go” guy.  How was she supposed to deal with Haven, living with people like that?

Whatever the case, Citrine quickly ditched the crowd and tried to get as close as she could to the water were the air buses would soon be landing.  The only other person waiting that far up was a short, squat girl with a turquoise comb over.  Instead of an obvious weapon, she had a bright orange toolbox by her feet, and instead of running around causing trouble, she was thumbing through her scroll with a disengaged expression. 

“So, hey,” Citrine said, sidling up to the girl. 

The girl didn’t look up from her scroll.  “Hey.”

“Do you mind if I stand here so we look like we’re together and nobody else bothers me?” Citrine asked quickly.

The girl flipped some hair out of her face.  “Sure.”

She let out a sigh of relief.  “Thanks,” she said.  “I’m Citrine, by the way.”

The girl sniffed loudly and held out one hand in Citrine’s direction in a gesture that didn’t really resemble a handshake.  “Torque,” Torque said.

After hesitating, Citrine simply sort slapped her hand against the back of Torque’s.  When she did, she swore she could almost see the hint of a smile creep onto Torque’s face.

The two girls didn’t share another word until the air buses arrived.  It was the best conversation Citrine had had all day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a colorful bunch of characters! I wonder if Citrine is going to be friends with all of them? I mean she and that Neptune guy, they sure seemed to get along! Maybe they could even be teammates!
> 
> But yeah, there's some bits and pieces of Team SSSN and Team ABRN in there now. I guess we never really knew if ABRN was in the same year as them, so I decided to throw them in because I always loved their character designs, and I have some upperclassmen of my own in mind.
> 
> By the way, Neptune didn't hit on Citrine because she was the prettiest girl there. She was just the one furthest from the sea.
> 
> Deberan: an ox-esque Grimm, about the size of a house  
> Meranian Sea: the sea to the east of Mistral Proper, serves as a natural border and protection for the kingdom


	6. Safe Haven

Slightly after one on the dot, three air buses landed by the port to ferry the students across the bay to their new school.  Filing on at the front of the line beside Torque, Citrine hoped she wouldn’t be lumped in with too many of the people who had weirded her out that day.  She seemed to luck out on that front since she didn’t see Ware or the phase guy around, but she hadn’t managed to avoid Neptune and the monkey faunus who, weirdly enough, already seemed to have made friends.  Whether that was for the best or not, it at least let her know that she and Neptune had something in common—they both hated traveling by air bus over open water.

Appearing to be having a minor panic attack in the middle of bus, standing as far from the windows as possible, Neptune at least had his new buddy to try to talk him down from it.  While she was crouched beneath a window, on the other hand, trying to deal with her swimming head and knotted stomach, Citrine had Torque.

And Torque...well...

“These things are safe, y’know,” Torque said, leaning back against the window beside her.  She was still mostly paying attention to her screen, though apparently for good reason now.  “I just looked it up,” she said.  “Less than 1% of all air bus flights crash, and the majority of the time, it’s because of unexpected weather events or Grimm attacks.”

“No offense, but I don’t really care how safe the bus is,” Citrine grumbled, her head between her knees.  “I care about how small it is.”

Torque briefly looked around, observing the ample walking room, even with the dozens of students and all their weapons on board.  “Doesn’t seem that small,” she commented.

“It feels small.”

Torque considered this, then said, “So, is claustrophobia your thing?”

“Wh—I’m not afraid of small spaces,” Citrine snapped defensively.  “I just really don’t like them.  They just feel really… _limiting_.”

“Yeah, I get that,” she said.  “I’m not a huge fan of all the people either.”

Citrine slowly lifted her head up.  “Really?”

Torque shrugged.  “Yeah.  Kind of all just noisy, hardly worth the time of day.  Especially knowing some of these people are just kind of…extra.”

“What do you mean by ‘extra?’” Citrine asked, hoping Torque wasn’t nearly so vague as Ware.

“Well,” Torque said, shuffling around slightly, “I went to Sanctum Academy with most of the people here.  I also went there with the couple hundred other people who started with our class and either dropped out or got too injured to carry on or, y’know, died in training accidents.  And the dropout rate _does_ generally go down with each year in the academy, so a lot of these people will end up sticking around, but I looked it up, and at the academy level, there’s still about one person out of every three teams who doesn’t make it to graduation.”  She let out a breath.  “So I guess ‘extra’ means ‘here to pad out everyone who’s actually in it for the long-haul.’”

Citrine considered that for a moment.  While she still wasn’t happy about being sent to Haven, she hadn’t considered the possibility of failing out, or others failing out.  What would it be like the first time she saw one of her classmates, perhaps someone who had dreamed of coming to Haven for years, fail out because they couldn’t take the pressure or keep up with the pace?  The first time one of them died for that dream?

She decided not to think about it, and changed the subject.

“So are you pretty good with those things?” she asked, pointing at Torque’s scroll.

“Hm?  Yeah, I guess,” Torque said.  “I’m better with things with big moving parts and nuts and bolts but yeah, I could take this apart if I had the right equipment.”

“Do you think you could take a look at mine?” Citrine asked, offering it up.  “I’ve never had one before and I can’t get it to do anything.”

“Anything like what?” Torque asked, taking it and quickly beginning to flip through.

“I couldn’t get it to tell me directions.  Also, I think the clock’s wrong.”

“Well,” Torque began, her voice for the first time rising above her usual monotone, “I’m not surprised.  You don’t have any settings adjusted.  This scroll still thinks you’re somewhere about 500 miles southwest of here.  Also, you haven’t downloaded any maps.  Here, just let me…”

Over the next few minutes, Torque proceeded to perform perhaps the greatest feat of magic Citrine had ever seen—turning her blank scroll into something that could tell the time, show her location in the world, respond to questions about any minute trivia, automatically transcribe notes from any professor’s lecture, and let her to play a weird little game about matching and collecting Grimm skulls.

“Also, I downloaded Hearth for you,” Torque said as she handed back the scroll.  “It’s this site that lets you keep up with personal updates and photos from people within the kingdom.”

“Ooh, really?”  Citrine eagerly began thumbing through, checking out all the new things Torque had added to the device.  “Cool!  Thanks, Torque!  That’s really nice of you.”

“Um…yeah.”  Torque scratched the back of her head, apparently taken aback by this.  “And if you, y’know, need any more scroll help, I can do that.”  Then quickly, or at least more quickly than her usual patter, she added, “Hey, do you want to be on the same team?”  When she noticed the surprised look on Citrine’s face, she looked away and added, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Citrine insisted.  “I’ve just heard a bit about the selection process from my parents, and I think we don’t usually have much choice.”

“I mean, I kind of figured that,” Torque said.  “But if we can make it any more likely to end up together, I think we should.  You seem okay.  I’d rather work with you than some random from Sanctum.”

“Didn’t you go to Sanctum with these people?” Citrine pointed out.

“Doesn’t mean I know them,” Torque said.

Suddenly, Torque’s own separation from the crowd made a lot more sense, and Citrine was oddly comforted by the fact that she really wasn’t the only outsider in the class. 

“Alright,” she said, holding up a hand to Torque, “deal.  Let’s try to make this happen.”

Torque reached a hand back and then vaguely slapped the back of Citrine’s.  Both of them smiled at the gesture.

A moment later, a holoprojector on the opposite side of the air bus activated and the familiar image of an emerald-cloaked, long-bearded man appeared.  “Greetings, students,” the projection said.  “I am Professor Merle Wyltt, and I would like to formally welcome you to Haven Academy.  We live in an age of growth and development, and it will become your duty as the next generation of hunters to combat the darkness of our world’s history and cut a clear path for change.  You have already proven yourselves to be willing and courageous students to be accepted here, and we will aid you in building the strength and resourcefulness you will need in order to become the guardians of a new age.  Now, if you will, lay your eyes on the horizon, and meet your new home.”

Citrine and Torque walked towards the front of the bus where the rest of the students were gathering in a crowd of wondrous gasps. And perhaps it was the new friend that was starting to change her outlook.  Perhaps it was the light headedness.  Whatever it was, when Citrine set her eyes on the distant outline of Haven Academy, she couldn’t help but finally feel she was going somewhere good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm...CWT? TCW? WTC? What colors can you make with those?


	7. Quildrake

If she had to be honest, Citrine would have to admit she hadn’t always hated the idea of Haven.  In fact, she used to adore it.  Back when she was a little girl, one of the members of Team RNBW would often take her up on their knee in the evening and regale her with stories of their time at the academy.  Their descriptions of the dorms where they had first made their lives together, the palatial school where they had been educated on the history and tactics of hunters, and the training fields where they had sparred with masters and classmates alike had made the island seem like a world all its own to young Citrine, and she had dreamed of one day travelling there to make it _her_ own.

It was only once she had grown older with a stronger sense of geography that she had started to resent the idea of being stuck there.  Understanding the amount of territory that was already part of her roaming family’s home, looking at maps of the world, and seeing that Haven’s island was hardly even a speck on there had made her regard the place as small, unimpressive, and confining, and it made teenage Citrine want to avoid getting stuck there at all cost.

Then, she landed on Haven’s island for the first time, and she realized there was a difference between a speck on a map and that speck in real life. 

“Whoa,” Citrine said. 

Stepping off the air bus’s bridge, she could already see a sprawling landscape that stretched beyond the horizon with a variety of environments.  Immediately before her was a broad, white sand beach, well trampled from the sparring matches of other students.  Beyond that was a forested path lined with trees and flowers alike.  Then, looming up in the distance on a hill near the center of the island was a large structure built in traditional Mistral style with great marble columns supporting a series of ornate, curved rooves. 

Haven Academy, dead ahead.

Unfortunately, whatever awe Citrine might have had for the moment was shattered by a series of shrill shrieks and exclamations as the bridge for the second air bus opened up and out onto the beach spilled a crowd of overexcited students.  When she looked to see what the commotion was all about, she was surprised to see Ware at the center of the crowd, handing out autographed items like bowls at a soup kitchen.

“What the…Ware?”  Citrine stared at the crowd in confusion as the boy who hadn’t even been able to give him a straight answer about where he was from easily addressed several dozen students who all seemed to be eager to get to meet him.  “Torque, are you seeing this?” she asked, gesturing in disbelief at the hubbub.

Torque looked up from her scroll, stared for a moment, and said, “Yep.  That’s Ware Sterling.”  She took note of Citrine’s country mouse appearance and commented, “I’m guessing you don’t know who that is.”

“Well, I do.  Or at least, I thought I did,” she said.  “I met him before the air buses picked us up.  He showed me through the city, then ditched me like a jerk.  Was he like, super popular back at Sanctum or something?”

Torque snorted.  “You could say that.  Ware Sterling was a member of Star Shot, which is basically the biggest pop music group in Mistral.  He’s probably one of the most famous Faunus in the world.  I don’t even really listen to pop, and even I know who he is because all everyone’s been talking about on Hearth lately is how he just announced he was leaving Star Shot.”  She looked at his crowd again, shrugged, and said, “I guess this is why.  Decided to go to Haven.”

“Well, that’s a…that’s a weird decision,” Citrine grumbled, though she couldn’t summon nearly enough venom for that statement as she would have liked, because really, that wasn’t the weirdest thing about him.  The weirdest thing was that, in their brief time together, the happiest this pop star with the world at his feet had seemed was when he was staring down the barrel of Harbinger.

She thought she briefly caught him glancing at her over the heads of all his admirers.  If he did, he quickly looked away, continuing to offer gentle smiles for the crowd instead.

After the final bus arrived and all the students had filed out, a professor arrived at the beach.  A short, slender woman with dark hair and eyes, outfitted in light blue leather armor, she held herself high with dignity and introduced herself as Lan Se Lautrec.

“And if you’ll follow me up the path, I will take you to the main school grounds where the headmaster will give the first-year welcome lecture,” Lautrec explained.  “You will have freedom to explore the grounds afterwards, and then sleep in the dining hall for tonight.  Tomorrow will be your first assessment.”

Citrine couldn’t help but wonder if the walk up to Haven was, in fact, the first assessment.  She was used to walking great distances each day, but usually only over flat ground.  Apparently, the main campus of Haven could only be reached by hundreds of feet of uphill climbing, first up the path and then up the white marble steps.  Citrine fared decently on the way up, but most of the group was at least winded by the time they reached the top, Torque included.

"I hate this," she puffed as they climbed up.  "I hate squeaky wheels and I hate people and I hate this."

While some like her faltered, the climb was also an opportunity for other students to start showing off their semblances and weapons, including the hoverboard girl from earlier and a pink haired person with a drone, both of whom used their weapons to fly up and ahead of the group.  Most annoyingly, the suit guy who had been flashing cash at the docks put on a show of his semblance, which seemed to allow him to jump into the air as if there were platforms beneath his feet.  As a result, he was waiting for them at the top of the stairs, unruffled, wearing the smuggest grin on his face, and asking, “What took the rest of you so long?  I’ve been waiting for _ages_!”

Citrine was so annoyed with his comment, she almost didn’t stop to take in the sights of the plateau the hill had leveled onto.  As it turned out, Haven Academy was broken up into a number of different buildings and structures.  While the main building for classes, lectures, and assemblies loomed up most impressively near the center of the campus, there were quite a few smaller buildings built in U-shapes with more marble columns lining external hallways and the courtyards within.  Those served a number of different purposes on campus, acting as dormitories, weapon storage, and mission control for the assignments they would eventually begin to take around Mistral, as Professor Lautrec explained.

For the moment, the first-years passed all of these by, heading straight for the main school building instead.  Citrine thought in passing of how this was the largest building she’d ever been in, but she was too distracted by the emotion of the moment to think too hard about it.  Everyone seemed distracted, in fact.  As they filed into the main hall, the building already quiet from the lack of its usual students and professors, a hush fell over them.  A sense of gravitas had settled on the group, and Citrine wondered if everyone else was just beginning to feel how real this was.

“Welcome, students, one and all.”

All heads turned as one to the low stage set up at the front of the hall where two figures stood before a microphone.  One of them was the stooped Merle Wyllt, looking even more wizened in person than he did in the holograms.  Standing beside him in gleaming red plate armor bearing a three-crown emblem on her chest was a middle-aged woman with curly auburn hair who carried an exquisitely polished sword with a golden hilt on her back.  She spoke with a voice that was both far-reaching and authoritative, but warm and personable as well.  She actually reminded Citrine a bit of Robin in that respect.

“I am Professor Artis Quildrake, the headmaster here at Haven,” she informed the room.  “Each of you has earned a place here by the strength of your hand, the sharpness of your mind, and the sweat of your back.  It is no small feat to put your name forward as a hunter in training and for that, I congratulate you.  However, as you look forward to the future and all that lays there for you as hunters, I ask you to first take a moment to look to the past.”

Citrine cocked her head and glanced at Torque, who also seemed slightly confused.  It wasn’t often hunters were asked to think of the past.  It was generally a forward thinking profession, always in consideration of what could happen next.

“What Haven is today…what the world is today is only possible because of the actions of generations of hunters before us,” Quildrake continued on.  “We are able to name a handful of them thanks to our history books and our campfire tales.  We call them heroes, and thank them for their fantastic deeds, but it takes more than a few blessed hands to change the course of history meaningfully.  Humanity has been carried here by the blood and the suffering and sacrifice of unnamed masses, by countless people who only sought to do their duty and offer protection to the defenseless in whatever way was required of them, even if that meant offering up their very lives.

“I tell you this not because I am preparing you to die, but because I want you to be willing to do whatever is necessary in your duty as hunters.  The world is experiencing an unprecedented age of peace, and as a result, we are seeing miraculous new innovations every day.  However, inevitably there will arise a darkness from this peace and it will leave us facing unprecedented challenges as well.  As the hunters of this age, it will be your duty to face these challenges and lead humanity through them, just as generations of hunters have done in the past.  As your headmaster, I implore you to use your time at Haven to study the past and come to understand what you are willing to give, so that when it is your turn to face the darkness, you will be ready to do what needs to be done.  Thank you, and, by the words of our school, ever upward.”

To the tune of lukewarm applause from a smattering students, Quildrake walked off the stage with Wyltt taking her place.  Pulling the microphone down to his level, Wyltt wheezed out, “If you leave this hall through the exit to your left and continue right down that hall, you will find yourself in the dining hall.  That is where you will sleep tonight.  The rest of the afternoon is yours to explore the campus, but please return by 8 p.m.  You have an early start tomorrow, and we’d like you to be well rested.”

Although Quildrake’s speech had left most of the crowd rather subdued, the mood seemed to pick up as they were dismissed.  They broke up into the small groups and pairs they’d already formed and began dispersing across the campus.

Citrine glanced at Torque.  Torque was already looking at her scroll again.

“So, what do you want to do now?” Citrine asked.

“I dunno,” Torque shrugged.  “What do _you_ want to do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artis Quildrake: headmaster at Haven  
> Merle Wyltt: professor and deputy headmaster at Haven  
> Lan Se Lautrec: professor at Haven


	8. "Friends"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos or comment if you like?

What Citrine really wanted to do at that moment was run to the beach, hop on an air bus back to Mistral, and run as fast and as far as it took to get back to the Vermoss Hunting Commune, to live there happily for the rest of her life and never look back on this very weird period.  However, since that wasn’t really feasible, she settled for the second best option, which was checking out the main building of the place that would be her home for the next…four years.

That very statement was still a hard pill for Citrine to swallow, so while she and Torque started poking around in the various classrooms, she also tried poking around in Torque’s background to distract herself.

“Soooo,” Citrine said as they stepped out of a room that had walls lined with mock wooden weapons of all sorts, “why’d you get into the whole hunting thing?  You don’t seem super excited to be here either.”

Torque, in a voice so deadpan it was impossible for Citrine to tell if she was joking or not, looked to her and asked, “Do I not seem excited to be here?”

“Uhh…”

“I mostly did it so I wouldn’t end up getting stuck in the family business,” Torque explained, passing over Citrine’s fumbled response.  “They have my sister and my brother and my cousins to run it, so I wouldn’t be doing anything essential.  I just wanted to get out of there so I could do something I’m actually interested in for a while.”

“And that’s…hunting?” Citrine asked.

“More like what I can use for hunting,” Torque said, briefly holding up the toolbox still carried in her left hand.  “I built Výthisi from the ground up.  I’ve always been more interested in machines than people, so to see what all I can do with that is good enough for me.”

“Huh.  I guess that makes sense,” Citrine said, though to her, it didn’t entirely.  To her, hunting had always been something essential, something you did just to keep on breathing.  To treat it as anything else was simply foreign to her.  “So, what’s your—”

Her question on the functions of Torque’s enigmatic toolbox was cut off as a figure was sent flying out of the doorway before them and smacked into the wooden railing that surrounded the hallway.  Citrine and Torque first looked at the figure, a scrawny, beak-nosed boy with a feathered red head who was now moaning in pain and curled up in the fetal position, then into the classroom he had come from.  Inside, there was a small crowd of their classmates gathered, forming a semi-circle around an open space where another student stood.  As she stepped up to the edge of the crowd, her stomach twisted when she realized that student was the skeletal-looking guy who had phased through her at the docks.

“C’mon, you cowards!” he shouted, egging the other students on.  “Who’s next?  Who’s got the guts to take me on?”

Citrine stared at him in disbelief and murmured, “What is this guy doing?”

“Trying to assert his dominance, apparently.”

She looked to who had answered her question, another girl standing on the edge of the crowd.  This girl had a pair of large deer horn knives crossed over her back and was professionally dressed with black dress pants and a sleek black vest over a dark blue shirt.  Her neat bun almost matched the color of her shirt and her skin almost matched the color of her vest.  However, in contrast to that, she also wore a pair of ratty, white sneakers.  She had an oddly calm look, despite the excitement of the crowd.

“That’s Skull Muinarc,” she explained, nodding towards the student who had already started another bout with an aqua-haired girl dual-wielding frying pans.  “He was always second in our class back at Sanctum and well-known for picking fights.  Some other students in here were bragging about their powers earlier when he overheard them.  He beat them three-on-one and he’s been taking challenges ever since.”

Citrine frowned in confusion.  “Really?” she asked.  “Why?  We have our first assessments tomorrow.  Why’s he wasting his strength like that?”

The girl smirked appreciatively.  “A sensible outlook at last,” she said.  “But who knows why the arrogant and the headstrong do anything?  Perhaps simple pride and impulsivity?  Though personally, I believe he may already trying to make a good showing for the Vytal Festival.”

“Wait, there’s a Vytal Festival this year?” Citrine asked.  She had heard of the festival from Team RNBW, who themselves had participated in the tournament as upperclassmen.  Robin had even gotten as far as the second round of singles fights.  They must have lost track of whether it was an on or off year for the festival, however, given that they hadn’t mentioned it when sending Citrine off.

“Indeed there is,” the girl nodded, “and Skull over there may already be attempting to make sure he has a clear shot at being sent over as one of Haven’s representatives.”

A loud THWACK and twin CLANGS brought Citrine’s attention back to the makeshift ring where Skull had knocked down the aqua haired girl as well, sending her pans spinning across the floor.  The girl seemed to recover quickly enough, offering out a hand and a, “Good match,” to her opponent.  Skull, however, did not seem interested, already back to staring down the crowd with that manic look of his.

“Is this the best you’ve got to offer?” he demanded.  He pointed his weapon, a serrated war scythe, at the crowd in an accusatory manner and declared, “Haven’s going to have one sorry-ass graduating class in four years if I don’t even have to break a sweat wiping the floor with you peons.”

Behind her shoulder, Torque quietly snorted, “Wow.  What a jackass,” and Citrine did agree with that.  The guy was being a jerk about this whole thing, but at the same time, he was doing it in a way that kind of made her want to…prove him wrong.  The truth was, Citrine had never fought another hunter her own age.  The only human sparring partners she had were hunters with decades more experience than her, meaning she’d never truly had a chance to win.  But now that she was here with all these others, and now that Torque had brought up the idea of testing limits…

Well, Citrine sort of wanted to test hers.

Just as she stepped forward, someone else making the same move bumped their shoulder into hers and immediately exclaimed, “Hey!  You should really watch where you step!”

Already getting into the mood for a fight, this sense was only heightened when Citrine looked to the offender and saw it was none other than white suit guy, staring down at her with a smug expression.

“Oh, I’m _sorry_ ,” Citrine growled, her lip curling up in disgust and her hand already twitching towards Harbinger’s Almanac.  “What was that?”

Suit guy, either ignorant or dismissive of the clear threat in her voice, made a sweeping gesture towards the ring saying, “I was just attempting to make my way to through the crowd to answer that ruffian’s challenge, when you had to so _rudely_ step in my way.  And look now!  There’s already someone taking my place!”

There was another girl facing off against Skull, twin morning stars in hand.  Citrine saw that it was the girl she’d noticed at the docks desperately attempting to pick a fight with the green haired guy.  With fewer people in the way, she was now also able to see that the girl had a white, reptilian tail lashing around excitedly. 

“You think you’re hot shit?” the girl asked, practically vibrating with excitement.  “We’ll see how hot you are once I’m done bashing in that bony face of yours.”

“Bring it on, Scales!” Skull exclaimed.  “Let’s see if you’re a fraction better than this sorry bunch!”

“Now, I can’t intrude on that!” the suit guy complained to Citrine loudly.  “Not after you’ve delayed me.  And I was so excited put him in his place.”

At that moment, Citrine could feel all her emotions from that day roiling up inside her, particularly all her hatred and disgust and annoyance for everything having to do with Mistral and its so-called “civilization.”  She could feel all this and she could feel it slowly and carefully locking on with laser-guided precision to this guy right here.

“Well, look here, _buddy_.”  Citrine grabbed Harbinger and started poking its hoe handle provokingly at suit guy’s double-breasted chest.  “You’ve been pissing me off all day, so if there’s someone you’d like to put in their place, why don’t you just try that with me?”

“Wait, hold on a sec,” Torque said behind her, whipping out her scroll.  “If you’re gonna kick his ass, let me get it on video for Hearth.”

“Wh—kick _my_ ass?” the suit guy laughed.  He pushed the tip of Harbinger away with one finger, and as he did, he noticed the crowd’s attention was starting to be split between Skull’s match, where the two combatants were still posturing, and his own confrontation.  “You’re really thinking of challenging _me_ , _Royal Mauvello_ , heir to the Monarch Communication Technologies Company?  Oh, _my dear_.”  Royal pulled the broadsword off his back and aimed it at Citrine.  “You’ve made a _tremendous_ mistake.”

“Geez, what’s going on in—oh!  Citrine!”

Citrine was momentarily distracted and then only further enraged as Ware stepped into the classroom, apparently having lost his crowd of fans for the moment.  He smiled at Citrine as simply as if he hadn’t hidden a major part of his identity before blowing her off and then, noticing Royal’s threatening posture, asked, “Everything okay here?  Need any more help?”

“Everything is FINE!” Citrine shouted, red in the face.  She snapped her wrist out, sending Harbinger into full axe mode, and as it became apparent that he was not dealing with a garden tool-brandishing girl, but an axe-wielding madwoman, Royal began to blanche and back away uncertainly.  “I’m dealing with this jackass all on my own, and I’m doing a great job with it, and even if I wasn’t, the last person I would need help from was Ware Ditchface Superstar Sterling!”

Before any of Citrine, Torque, Royal, or Ware could make another move or hurl another insult, a screech rose up from the crowd of, “Ware Sterling?”  There was a shriek, followed by a heavy girl with wild, red hair and a sword almost as big as she was barreling towards the group, bouncing up and down, exclaiming, “Oh my gosh, you’re really here!  I love you so much!  Ahhhh!”

Ware, who had already seemed distracted by Citrine’s words, had a hard time addressing her properly, saying, “Um, that’s, uh, very nice of you, and—”

Citrine aimed Harbinger at Royal, saying, “So, are we gonna do this or what?”

Sword still in hand, Royal held his hands up and said, “Now, let’s not be too hasty.  There’s—there’s a lot of people in the way here.”

Torque continued to film it all, already imagining the amount of logs she was going to get on Hearth for this.

“What is going on in here?”

Professor Lautrec appeared in the doorway, staring down the mass of students inside.  All activity quieted instantly under her stern gaze.

“We gave you the entire afternoon to explore the campus, and you’re using it to coop yourselves up in one classroom?” Lautrec scolded them.  “You have four years in classrooms ahead of you.  Break up this nonsense right now and go outside.  Go on, shoo!”

Gradually, the chaos inside disengaged and the students broke up.  Heading out of the classroom with Torque, Citrine glanced over her shoulder at where Royal was walking, not too far from Ware.  Both of them seemed to be watching her go.  She used the signal to make it clear that she was watching both of them as well.

The rest of the afternoon was not quite so eventful, and Citrine honestly couldn’t tell if she was thankful or disappointed by that.  On one hand, she had clearly already been stretched thin by the day’s drama and was unsure of what she would be pushed to do upon facing further confrontation.  On the other hand, all of that tension had done wonders to relieve her mind of the anxiety her new reality brought her.  The quiet exploration of an empty campus had only allowed her to once again dwell on the fact that her new life was the exact thing she’d spent years dreading.

“I don’t know how I’m going to deal with this for the next four years,” Citrine quietly confessed, plopping down onto her sleeping bag beside Torque at the end of the day.  All around them in the dark dining hall, the other hunters-in-training were beginning to settle down, preparing themselves for the challenges that lay ahead and the thrill of discovering who their partners and teammates would be.  “I just still don’t feel right here,” she said, “and it seems like every other person is a jerk with a chip on their shoulder who hates my guts.”

“Yeah, well,” Torque said, turning off sounds on her scroll for the night, “that’s kind of how it is with hunting academies.  I didn’t much like it when I got to Sanctum either.”

“But…eventually you grew to love it until it felt like a home away from home?” Citrine asked, already suspecting the answer.

“Nah,” Torque said.  “I never really made friends there and I was pretty glad just to leave at the end.  But, y’know.”  She glanced at Citrine, a small smile on her lips.  “I didn’t have you to put up with me back then.  That might've made the difference.”

Citrine smiled back.  “That’s true.  And I never imagined I’d find some mystical scroll wizard when I came to Haven.  That might help me out,” she said.  The knot of anxiety was still in her stomach, but at least with Torque there, it felt like she had someone trying to pull it apart.  “Alright, tomorrow,” she said enthusiastically, rolling onto her back, “we enact Plan Don’t Get Partnered with Assholes.  Sync?”

Torque touched a random spot on her scroll and nodded.  “Sync.”

And though neither knew what waited for them on the other side of the dawn, that was reassuring enough to let them get an easy night’s rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Man, I got a late start on this chapter after outlining stuff all day. Maybe I'll make it a short one!  
> Chapter: *is the longest chapter yet*
> 
> Also, here's a list of people I know/have headcanoned are in this year at Haven! Because I like lists!  
> Aqua Cascade  
> Arslan Altan  
> Bolin Hori  
> Carmine Baccata  
> Citrine Vermoss  
> Hibiscus Blume  
> Lux Baialban  
> Mint Irving  
> Nadir Shiko  
> Neptune Vasilias  
> Reese Chloris  
> Royal Mauvello  
> Sage Ayana  
> Scarlet David  
> Skull Muinarc  
> Sun Wu Kong  
> Tanager Bone  
> Torque Usi  
> Umbra Ire  
> Ware Sterling


	9. In the Loosest Sense of the Word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos or comment if you like?

It was one of Citrine’s most closely guarded secrets that she had recurring nightmares about being trapped in small spaces.  Sometimes, she was buried in a coffin prematurely and had to attempt to claw her way out.  Sometimes, she was the victim of a cave-in and would lie there trembling as the rocks above threatened to make their final fall.  Sometimes, she would simply be trapped in a space so small that her body was crushed and twisted out of its natural shape, making her body and her mind alike scream out in agony.  Whatever the scenario, it always sent her waking up in a heart-racing, cold-sweat panic, insisting to anyone who asked that she was just having nightmares about Grimm.  Despite what she had insisted to Torque, Citrine did, in fact, have a thing with claustrophobia, and it was not a thing she dealt with well.

Her first night at Haven, Citrine had a claustrophobic nightmare once again.  In it, she came to in complete darkness and when she stood up, she could feel chilled, metallic walls close to her on every side and a metallic ceiling just barely above her own head.  Her heart began to pound.  She reached desperately around for any sort of crease or door but there were none to be found.  She began to pound on the walls and shouted, “Let me out!  Let me out!” but there was no answer.

_Oh no, oh no, ohnonononono._

Her stomach was clenched in the grip of her fear.  She began to hyperventilate and sank to the floor, clutching her spinning head.  It was only then she realized that she was sitting on something—Harbinger’s Almanac.

Citrine paused, and felt it just to be certain, but she would recognize the feel of her weapon anywhere.  With shaking hands, she felt in the pocket of her utility belt and found her scroll there too.  Something was different here.  Something was off.  Citrine never had anything that could help her in these dreams.  Then she pulled her scroll open.  Only two pieces of information were available on there, the time—8:15 a.m.—and a message: ESCAPE.

This wasn’t a nightmare, Citrine realized.  This was her first test at Haven, and the fact that she was actually in a horrifically small box instead of trapped in the punishment realm of her nightmares was oddly comforting.  If it was real, then she could fight it, and she would.

Since the box was hardly big enough for her to fully activate Harbinger, let alone maneuver it in an attack, Citrine took a different tactic.  Grounding herself, she placed her hands on opposite walls and began to feel outward with her semblance.  Concentrating was difficult when she was being reminded by her own arm span how little space she had, but her will to escape pushed her through it.  Sure enough, she was able to feel plant life nearby—plant life reaching down towards her.  Citrine drained away as much as she could, taking in the energy until both her arms were glowing green with it, then aimed it up at the ceiling and let it loose.

Citrine’s attack blasted straight through the ceiling, first surprising her with now flimsy the roof was, then with the shower of earth that fell onto her.  Spitting dirt out of her mouth, she supposed it made sense now that she had felt plants above her.  She wasn’t just in a box; she was in a box _underground_. 

At least, for the moment she was.

Preparing to climb out, she remembered back to her awkward tween years when she was beginning to build Harbinger, and Budge and Robin had been questioning her decision to make its dormant form a hoe instead of just a folded up version.

“Well, who’s a weird little plant kid now?” she asked, hooking her hoe into the dirt above the box and using it to help pull herself up. 

Twenty minutes of climbing, digging, blasting, and struggling upwards later and Citrine finally reached a hand out through the surface like the first seedling of the season reaching up and towards the sun.  A moment later, she was gasping and clawing her way through the opening like a scaleback emerging from its hibernation beneath the winter snows.

Once she had fully made her way out, Citrine clung tightly to the grass beneath her, most of which had been drained of life by her semblance, and deeply breathed in all the fresh, clean air around her.  “Freedom,” she puffed out, smiling in utter relief.  “ _Freedom_.”

“Congratulations, Citrine Vermoss!”

Citrine jumped and spun around to look for the voice, then realized it was coming from her scroll.  She grabbed it and pulled it open to find a video message waiting there for her from Professor Wyltt, smiling serenely out from the screen.

“You have now made it past the first stage of the exercise,” Wyltt said.  “A fine effort.  The instructions for the rest of the exercise are as follows.  You have been dropped on one of the training environment islands in an archipelago off the west coast of Haven.  Near the south coast of the island is an abandoned arena containing a number of artifacts.  You are to make your way to that arena and retrieve an artifact. 

“Along the way to the arena, you will likely encounter a number of other Haven students.  The first one you meet will be your partner for the next four years, and the rest of your team will be determined based on your performances in this exercise.  So, simply find your partner, find your way to the arena, grab your artifact, and then find your way to the rendezvous point on the east coast.  Good luck, and ever upward, students!”

The message ended and the screen went dark.  Citrine bit the inside of her lip.  So, that was it?  The first person she met out here was her partner?  She’d suspected something like that when Warbler had described the process as involving an element of destiny, but she’d never thought it would be so… _simple_.

“Torque!” Citrine exclaimed, suddenly remembering her friend and their deal.  If she didn’t want to end up with some jerk, she would have to find Torque fast.  Considering the situation, that would be nearly impossible.  She didn’t have a clue where Torque had been buried or if she’d gotten out before or after Citrine or if she would stay or move from there.  The environment they’d been dropped in didn’t help with the possibility of tracking either.  She looked at her surroundings and noted that even though she had come up from a dry spot, the rest of the area was swampy with patches of soggy grass and wetland as well as low-hanging trees covered in moss and vines.  How was she supposed to track anyone, let alone someone she barely knew, in these conditions?

“Just think about it rationally,” Citrine told herself.  Torque would do that.  Torque was a very straight forward kind of person.  She likely wouldn’t mess around in the area looking for Citrine.  If she was going anywhere, she was already heading towards the goal.

Citrine started off at a run, stomping through the squishy marshlands towards the south, deciding that her best shot for finding Torque was running into her on the way to the arena.  She guessed that Torque wasn’t the fastest person, so there was a chance she could get there first and just wait it out, hoping that everyone else who arrived at the arena was already partnered.

But because this was a survival situation, and she had been trained to always have a back-up plan when it came to survival, Citrine was already thinking of who else she would be okay partnering with.  It seemed like a pretty small list.

She still didn’t appreciate Ware lying to her or at least omitting the truth.  If she met up with him, she would probably chew him out at least a little, but he still seemed like a nicer and more rational person than Skull and the lizard faunus.

There had also been that one girl in the vest watching the fight who had been very smart about analyzing the situation.  She’d seemed to think Citrine was okay too.  She supposed she wouldn’t mind too much being paired with someone like that.

So there was Torque, and sort of Ware, and maybe vest girl.  If she thought about it, there were probably a bunch of other students in the class she hadn’t even encountered yet who were perfectly nice, normal, and competent people.  When it came down to it, there was really just a handful of assholes she had to avoid above all others, and if she could just manage to do that, then she would be—

“WAH!”

A sword burst up tip-first from the swamp water, not a foot before where Citrine was.  She skidded out of the way to avoid slicing herself in half and ended up slipping and falling into the muck.  When she sat up, she was able to see another student emerging from beneath the wet earth with as much dignity as someone in such a situation could.  It took her a moment to realize that this person crawling out of the mud was now her partner.

Citrine cursed mentally as she tried to make out who this person was.  Even covered in the muck, she could easily tell this wasn’t Torque.  Way too tall and broad and male.  It couldn’t be Ware either because Ware didn’t have a sword.  For a moment, she thought it might be a stranger.  Then she heard him speak.

“Eeeeeuch!  How disgusting!” he said, already attempting to wipe mud and squeeze water out of what was now a surely ruined white suit.  “I just had this dry cleaned yesterday and I have no idea what services are available at this school.”  He noticed Citrine watching him from where she was sitting in the mud and jumped.  “You!” he exclaimed in alarm.  “You’re not here to finish what you started yesterday are you?  Honestly, you simple-minded fool, now is not the time!”

From the back pocket of the young man’s pants, Professor Wyltt’s muffled voice called out, “Congratulations, Royal Mauvello!”

Citrine stared at him in disbelief.  Then a certain word tried its hardest to escape her lips.

“Fffffffffffffffffffffffffff—”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this technically means I got out two chapters in one day. Go me.
> 
> Also, look! Citrine's made a new friend! She and Royal are now the first half of a Team CR. Or Team RC. Or Team Any Combination of C and R with other letters in-between. Either way, I'm sure they're gonna get along like a house on fire.


	10. More like Acquaintances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feed the author? Kudos or comment if you like?

#S__N

“—un!  Not fun!  Not fun!” Neptune Vasilias shouted as he fled through the forest, an enraged ursa on his tail.  This was not how he’d imagined Grimm hunting back in Sanctum.  Back when it was just classroom combat training and hunting theory and sparring with cute girls, the whole “hunter” thing had seemed a whole lot easier.  It was apparently a whole lot messier in practice.

Catching sight of the swamp and the vines ahead, Neptune suddenly got an idea for how he could get out of this with all his blood still in his body.  Dashing ahead, he grabbed a vine in one hand and swung himself around the tree while gripping his gun in the other.  When he came to face the ursa again, Neptune took one well-aimed shot at its head just as someone else shot the ursa from behind.

When the Grimm fell to the ground, Neptune was left facing Sun Wukong across its corpse.  They stared at their handiwork together in awe.

Sun said, “Dude.”

Neptune said, “Did we just—”

“—finish off the same Grimm—”

“—at the exact same time?”

Neptune and Sun ran at each other, bumped chests, and then high-fived, all while standing atop the just-beginning-to-dissolve ursa.  Then the new partners ran off into the forest together at the beginning of a beautiful bromance.

#MT

There was more than just Neptune having difficulty with his first encounter with a Grimm that hadn’t been pre-packaged for him in a classroom.  Tanager Bone, the feather-hair buzzard faunus who’d been sent flying out of the room by Skull on his first day, was now on the run from a boarbatusk.  He’d barely had time to listen to the instructions from that wilted old professor before bumping into the Grimm.  To his credit, he had actually attempted to attack the boarbatusk first, but his vocal attack semblance hadn’t been very effective when his voice was cracking out of nerves.

Even though he was running for his life, Tanager had already resigned himself to dying quickly and in the most embarrassing way possible.

Behind him, Tanager heard the boarbatusk speed up as it went into its spinning form and he prepared for it to run him down at any second.  However, before that could happen, someone tackled him into the ground, squashing them both down into the murky water.  The boarbatusk flew right over their backs and spun off into the distance.

Picking up his sopping head, Tanager looked into the face of his savior—and his new partner—a green-eyed girl dressed like a grandmother.

“Thanks, partner,” Tanager said sarcastically.  “You couldn’t have done it without wrecking my clothes?”

The girl, Mint Irving, shoved his head back into the muck and sweetly asked, “Sorry, what was that?”

#RN

But of course, for all the students struggling through their first steps, there were at least as many breezing through; some, more literally than others.  Reese Chloris, for example, had taken her hoverboard over the tops of the trees to see if she could put a new spin on partner hunting in the hopes of finding a good one.  As it turned out, there was one standout candidate—a pink haired boy who had been treed by a pack of beowolves and looked just as shaky as the branch he was standing on.  Reese leaned forward and sped up to meet him.

Hovering above him, Reese offered out a hand along with a big, cheesy grin and shouted, “Come with me if you want to not get totally ripped apart and die!”

The boy, Nadir Shiko, looked up with uncertain blue eyes and asked, “Um, aren’t you the girl who stole my lunch yesterday?”

“Hm.  I guess you’ve got a good point there,” Reese said playfully.  “Sorry, that was super rude of me.  I’ll just leave you here to—”

“No, no, no, no, no!  It’s fine!  I hate tuna salad anyway!” Nadir insisted quickly.  “Take me with you, please.”

Reese smirked and pulled Nadir up onto her board.  He clutched tightly around her neck and the new partners flew off towards the arena looming up in the distance.

#SC

Differences in power and experience weren’t the only issues facing the partnerships rapidly forming up on the island.  Some of them were simply having issues of personality, and Skull Muinarc was included in these ranks.  There were many things he found dissatisfying in life, but first and foremost among them now was the fool with flaming red hair who had managed to stumble into his eye line before anyone else.  Admittedly, he hadn’t seen anyone else in the school yet who he would be satisfied with to have as a partner, but this girl in particular was so…so—

“Isn’t this fun, Skull?” Carmine Baccata asked, beaming over her shoulder at Skull, her massive sword held aloft before her to ward off the pack of scalebacks surrounding them.  “Just you, me, and all these nasty old Grimms.”

Skull clenched his jaw in annoyance.  Dumb.  That was the word.  So _dumb_.

“Y’know, back at Sanctum, I always thought you were really cool, and look at us now, thick as thieves!” Carmine laughed.  “I really wanted to get to know you back then too, but you always seemed so busy.  Plus, you always had that thing going with—hey!  Where’re you going?”

Carmine watched in confusion as Skull sheathed his scythe and then used his intangibility semblance to walk straight through the pack of Grimm to escape.

“Oh.  Oh!  I see!” she called after him.  “Wanna get the mission done quickly.  Don’t worry, Skull, I’ll catch up in a minute!”  Carmine then did her best to plow through the rows of scalebacks to make sure he knew she was good enough.

#W_T

There were also a few select partnerships whose issues had nothing to do with each other and everything to do with themselves.  While Torque was making her way through the swamp at a steady pace, she was trying her hardest not to focus on all the unfamiliar around her and turn her attention to the things she knew instead.  She knew the weight of Výthisi in her hand and she knew what her goals were—find Citrine and get to the arena.  Citrine was familiar too now.  Finding her would help take the edge off the situation.

Unfortunately, Torque had a distinct feeling that her chance to stick with the familiar had already disappeared.

“You can stop hiding, y’know,” Torque commented to the supposedly empty swamp around her.  She waited a moment, and when no one appeared, she added, “I’m really good with sensing auras, just so y’know.  I could sense you creeping a mile away.”

There was a splash behind her and Torque turned to see that Ware Sterling had landed.  He wore an amicable smile but a twitch in his ears betrayed some other emotion Torque couldn’t peg.

“Sorry for appearing to spy,” Ware apologized.  “I just wanted to make sure the area was clear of Grimm first so we could meet in peace.”

“Uh-huh,” Torque said.  She sniffed.  “So I guess we’re partners now.”

Ware nodded.  “That does appear to be the case,” he said.  “By the way, I saw you with Citrine yesterday.  Just out of curiosity, are you familiar with her?”

“Uh, yeah,” Torque said, defensiveness creeping into her voice.  “I’m her friend.”

“Well, that’s good!” Ware said enthusiastically, although his eyes narrowed in a way Torque couldn’t explain.  “That just means we already have something in common.  Shall we carry on and see if we might meet up with her?” he asked, pointing south towards the arena. 

“Sure,” Torque said.  She started off, and then called back, “I got some good video of you getting chewed out by her yesterday too.  Thanks for all the logs.”

Ware’s ears twitched again and he began to trail after her.

* * *

 

“And that’s the last of the partners,” Wyltt said, watching the screen of the large scroll that had been set up for him by Professor Lu.  “Torque Usi and Ware Sterling.  Odd pairing, that.  The girl with the worst grades at Sanctum and the boy who was admitted on the highest recommendations.”

He stood together with Quildrake on the beach where they would be waiting over the following hours for the new students to arrive with their artifacts.  In the meantime, they had reports from other professors observing the situation flooding in to keep the occupied.  There was a lot to hear about when it came to more than a hundred new students working in new conditions, some of them facing Grimm in real combat situations for the first time.

“Now Merle, you know there’s much more to both of them than their grades and recommendations,” Quildrake pointed out fairly.  “But I admit, they do make an odd couple.  There seems to be a lot of that this year.”

“Not without their merit though!” Wyltt said.  “There are some strong partnerships out there this year as well.” 

Quildrake nodded.  “Sun Wukong and Neptune Vasilias, Arslan Altan and Bolin Hori, Umbra Ire and Lux Baialban; those all look promising.  Skull Muinarc and Carmine Baccata could be a step ahead of the rest as well if they could learn to work together.”

“And what about that one student—the one those alumni of ours asked you to keep an eye on?” Wyltt asked before letting out a wheezing cough.

“That—ah, yes, that one.”  Quildrake smirked as she thought of the letter that had been sent to her by no less than her own underclassmen from her Haven days.  One of the things she remembered most clearly about her fourth year at the academy was hearing about the exploits of those troublesome first-years in Team RNBW, whether it was "liberating" large wheels of cheese from the cafeteria to see if certain captive Grimm would eat it or stowing away on drop ships for advanced missions and competing with each other to see who could go the longest without being found out.  Apparently, the quartet had considerably mellowed and matured in the two decades since then, as they had written to ask Quildrake to keep an eye on their own potentially troublesome daughter.  “From what I understand, she’s doing fine at the moment,” Quildrake said.  “Although she has been partnered with _Royal Mauvello_ , so she may have her hands full for a while.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first Citrine-less chapter. Instead, have a bunch of little snapshots from some other friendly faces and know that our girl will be back tomorrow.


	11. The Prince's Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I reveal this entire fic was nothing more than an excuse to make Princess Bride references.

#R_C

Nary had once told Citrine a farmhouse story of a hunter who went dark.  Although he began life as a noble man with a semblance that gave him remarkable powers of regeneration, he quickly began abusing his strength, first extorting those he was meant to protect, then abandoning his post to serve the highest bidder.  Eventually, the people he served grew tired of his swinging loyalties and ended up throwing him to the beowolves.  Although he should have died, his semblance prevented him from being killed by them, leaving him to be torn apart by Grimm for all eternity.

“And they say you can still hear his cries today, especially on moonless nights _just…like…tonight_ ,” Nary had said, just before Robin started making spooky noises just out of sight in an attempt to scare little Citrine.  She’d just thought it was funny at the time.  When thinking about the story when she was a little older, however, she’d thought it was kind of horrific, being viciously ripped apart for all eternity just for looking after your own interests.

When thinking about the story when she was 17 years old and had just been partnered with Royal Mauvello, heir to the Monarch Communication Technologies Company and quite possibly the most infuriating person alive, Citrine thought she would rather be in that hunter’s place, being ripped apart by beowolves in an endless cycle of pain and torment, than where she was at the moment.

“Honestly, what do they expect us to do out here?” Royal complained loudly as he wandered around from tree to tree, appearing to evaluate their branches.  “What’s a trek through a swamp supposed to prove?  How well we can deal with humidity?”

“Well, it’s probably a test of our ability to adapt to new environments and reach a destination without much instruction,” Citrine explained through gritted teeth.  “It’s also probably a test of our ability to not _kill each and every annoyance in our_ _path_ because _what are you even doing?_   You’ve been walking in circles for five minutes!”

Royal gave her a look like one a baker would give to a person who asked what they needed all that flour for.  “I’m looking for a place to hang my jacket,” he said, gesturing to the filthy suit jacket he now carried.  The lavender shirt he wore beneath it wasn’t in much better shape, but that one didn’t show the stains quite so much.  “I know you don’t have any formal education, but you do know what ‘humidity’ means, right?  It means this won’t dry out for ages without a fire to hang over.”

Citrine wanted to throw up.  Or beat up Royal until he did.

“So, let me get this straight,” Citrine said, her fists clenched tightly.  “You want to stop our progress.” 

“That’s what I’m doing,” Royal nodded.

“In the middle of a Grimm-infested swamp.” 

“That’s correct.”

“So you can start a fire.” 

“Yes.”

“So you can dry out a suit jacket.” 

“See?  You’ve got it!”

“And you think I’m the stupid one.”

“Ye—hey now,” Royal scolded her.  “Now, that’s uncalled for.”

Citrine abruptly rushed him and used Harbinger to slice his jacket in half.  Royal let out a squeal.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, holding up his new crop top and sounding horrified.  “My jacket—”

“ _Hang_ your damn jacket, Royal!” Citrine shouted, standing on her toes to get into his face.  “We are in a completely vulnerable position and we do not have time to just wait here for your dry cleaning.  Either you get with that program, or I’m leaving you behind.”

Royal scoffed and acted taken aback in an extended manner.  “Wh— _me?_   You think you can simply leave _me_ behind?” he asked.  “What makes you think _you’re_ the one who can survive out there on her own?”

“I’ve spent my whole life living in the wilderness, outside of the bounds of Mistral,” Citrine informed him.  “I was trained by a team of Haven graduates who have made a career out of protecting helpless people traveling through dangerous territories, with an emphasis on survival skills and axe-fighting.  I have no real desire to be here, but that’s mostly because I don’t like having to be tethered to things that weigh me down, including fools like you who probably wouldn’t know the slicey end of a sword from the holdy end, but I still have no intention of letting that get me killed!”

Royal pursed his lips tightly for a moment while considering this.  “Well,” he said.  “I’m sure that seems very impressive to you, _but_.”  It took him another moment to consider that “but.”  “But, it does not change the fact that I could, at any time, head off right down that path and find my way to the arena perfectly fine.”

Citrine stared the way he was pointing, then stared back at Royal.  “The arena’s to the south,” she said.  “That way’s _north_.”

“Oh…oh?”  Royal smiled sheepishly, his expression trying to play off an honest mistake.  “Well, I may be willing to concede that in… _this_ particular situation, you may be better suited to, er, navigating us towards our destination.  I feel as though I _might_ be willing to allow you to take the lead here.  For now.”

“Yeah, I bet you will,” Citrine said.  She roughly poked Royal in the chest and said, “When it comes to survival, don’t bullshit about stuff you don’t know.  That gets people hurt.”

As she spun and began to stomp off through the swamp with Royal silently tagging along behind her, apparently tongue tied, Citrine desperately wanted to feel good about finally having gotten the final word in an interaction at this school, but there was something nagging her too much to allow that sense of triumph. 

Every word she’d told him was true.  Citrine took hunting and surviving on the job very seriously.  After all the times her parents had put themselves at risk in order to make up for her own mistakes and inexperience, she had trained her hardest to improve so they would never have to do that for her again.  To have that control she’d worked so hard for abruptly taken away by being partnered with some inexperienced rich kid was making her feel unnerved, to say the least.

And this guy in particular was just so…so—

“Would you wait up now, you…you…Hey, could you tell me your name?” Royal asked, stumbling along behind her.  “I can’t just keep calling you country bumpkin forever.”

Dumb.  So dumb.  _So_ dumb. Soooooooo—

“It’s Citrine Vermoss,” she said shortly.

“Citrine,” Royal echoed.  “A precious gem, if I'm not mistaken.  I suppose that’s not a bad name.  And I’m—”

“I already know who you are, jackass,” Citrine said.  “You announced your name and who your parents are already.  Extremely loudly.  In front of about 20 people.”

“Ah.  Yes, I…guess I did,” he admitted.  “Well, I have been introducing myself to a lot of people lately.  You can’t blame me for losing track of a few.”

“Wanna bet on it?” Citrine grumbled.

“Alright, alright, now just you hold up a second there, Citrine,” Royal said.  When she hurried forward instead of holding up, Royal had to hurry even faster to catch up.  Admittedly, it did bring her some pleasure to see the pit stains forming on his shirt and how mussed his formerly perfectly coifed hair was getting.  “Now, I’m not any more pleased with this partnership than you are, but I would at least like to try to help us get along if we’re going to have to work together for the next four years,” he said in an even tone.  “And communication is the first step to a healthy relationship.”

Citrine sliced at a vine with Harbinger instead of brushing it aside and continued forward, keeping her mouth glued shut.

“Okay, I’ll be the bigger man and start,” Royal volunteered.  “You already know that my parents own and operate the Monarch Communication Technologies Company, meaning that we were heavily involved in developing the most reliable intra-kingdom communication network known to mankind, and that my mother basically invented the scroll.  So, now, why don’t you reciprocate and tell me what your parents do?”

Truly, it was amazing that the most impressive thing about Royal so far was that he could turn even an attempt to offer an olive branch into an excuse to brag about the accomplishments of his family.

“My family runs the Vermoss Hunting Commune,” Citrine told him. 

“Vermoss?  Like your name?  So, you’re an heiress?” Royal asked, eagerly jumping on the point.  “I’m an heir!  We already have something in common.  Although, you’re not like any heiress I’ve ever met before.  Now, out of courtesy, I'm not going to name names, but there was this one girl I met back home in Atlas, and you would not _believe_ the personality on her!  Cold as ice, and completely oblivious about it!  Imagine!”

“Oh, I can imagine,” Citrine grumbled under her breath.

“You really must have a lot of experience with hunting then, if it was your parents’ business,” Royal commented.

Citrine rolled her eyes.  “That’s what I’ve been telling you for the last 20 minutes.”

“Well then, do you think you could tell me if we should be concerned about those things following us?”

“Things?  What thi—oh, shit!”

She turned and looked around just in time to see a number of small, dark shapes scurrying out of sight and diving into the water.  Immediately, Citrine took a defensive stance with Harbinger and started kicking herself mentally.  How could she have been so stupid?  She’d literally let herself become so distracted by Royal, she hadn’t noticed that they were being surrounded.

“Be on alert,” Citrine said, backing up beside him.  “I think we’ve got some G.O.U.S.’s incoming.”

“Uh, gooses?”  Royal chuckled and said with what must have been all the condescension he could muster, “Look, I know you’re not the brightest but _please_ , the plural of goose is _geese_ , not—”

“I’m not talking about goose like the bird, you fool!” Citrine snapped.  “I’m talking about G-O-U-S!  Grimm of Unusual Size!  They’re these cat-sized rodent-like Grimm and they are _nasty_.”

Royal scoffed.  “Grimm of Unusual Size?  I don’t think those—EEK!”

From out of the muck, a black shape launched itself screeching at Royal and would have taken a chunk out of his face if not for the fact that Citrine sliced it in half mid-leap.  As the neat halves landed around him, Royal tried to calm his rapid breathing and compose himself.

“Aha.  Ahem.  Well,” he said, posturing.  “Thank you for your assistance Citrine, but I assure you, if given enough time, I could’ve—”

“Time’s up,” Citrine said, grabbing his arm with her spare hand and beginning to drag him forward.  “We’ve got to get out of the area.”

“But-but why?” Royal asked.  “That Grimm didn’t seem quite so nasty.”

“Yeah, well, one G.O.U.S. is easy, but those things pack together in dozens, sometimes hundreds,” she explained, trying to keep a closer eye out for them as they moved.  Already, she could see them forming ranks, a mass of black forms leaping towards them in waves.  “The stupid things attack together and it’s easy to get overwhelmed if you’re not sharp.”

“Not sharp,” Royal echoed, a quaver of nervousness in his voice.  “Right.  Um, Citrine?  I think there’s something I should perhaps tell you.”

“Look, if you wanna brag about your family some more, now is not the—”

“I’ve never fought a Grimm before!”

“WHAT?”  Citrine nearly tripped over a hole in the ground at his confession.  “What do you mean you’ve never fought a Grimm before?” she shouted in disbelief.

“It was voluntary under my master and I-I never got around to volunteering!”

_“How did you get into Haven without ever having fought a real Grimm?”_

_“I have an incredibly wealthy family!  How do you think?”_

“Oh, would you shut up for one second about your—DUCK!”

“Duck?  I thought they were—ACH!”

Royal got the memo and ducked a split second before Citrine’s axe and a G.O.U.S. met where his head had just been.  Citrine looked back and forth between Royal covering himself on the ground and the impending wave of G.O.U.S.’s and sighed in exasperation.

“Look, you’re just gonna get in my way,” she said.  “Just use that jumpy semblance of yours to stay off the ground and I’ll get away on my own.”

All the sass and snappy retorts scared out of him, Royal shakily got to his feet and nodded mutely.  He activated his semblance and began to jump up and up and up, heading towards the south.  To cover his escape, Citrine aimed another blow at the early arrival G.O.U.S.’s, wiping out three with one hit, and took off again herself.

“Don’t get too far ahead of me!” she shouted up.  “Royal!  _Royal!_ ”

However, the boy either couldn’t hear her or was staunchly ignoring her.  He just kept jumping farther and farther ahead until Citrine lost sight of him altogether.

And then it was just Citrine, the G.O.U.S.’s, and that horrific twisted feeling in her stomach that she’d been abandoned again.

 _Stop it.  Don’t think like that,_ she tried to tell herself.  _You’re better off alone than with him._

But that was something Citrine had never been able to convince herself of.

Still, she would not let herself be dragged down.  She would not be weak enough to let her emotions feed the very Grimm that hunted her.  Citrine abruptly stopped, turned, and let out a mighty cry before launching herself into the path of the G.O.U.S.’s.  She cut through and batted away a dozen of them as energy gathered in her left hand and then blasted away another swathe with her semblance. 

Spinning, whirling, slashing, stabbing, and draining life from every plant within a five foot radius, Citrine wiped away masses of G.O.U.S.’s until she was surrounded by nothing but withered husks and dissolving bodies.  She stood among the carnage, breathing heavily, and holding off resting Harbinger until she felt certain they were all gone.

“‘I don’t think those exist,’” Citrine sneered mockingly, pulling Harbinger to her side.  “Jackass.”

There was a loud screech behind her, the sound of another G.O.U.S. leaping to attack, but before Citrine could properly react, there was a whooshing sound as well, and when she turned, she found the G.O.U.S. pinned to the ground by an arrow as it was burned by the effects of fire dust.

“Was that meant to be your kill?” called out a familiar voice.  “Sorry, I thought you could use a little help.”

Citrine stared across the swamp and was literally weak with relief to see Ware and Torque approaching her.  She fell to her knees on the muck and dead plants, but was waiting for them with a smile all the same.

“So,” she said when they reached her, “I guess you two are partners.”

Torque, who looked the happiest Citrine had seen her yet as she helped her up, nodded and said, “Yep.  Weird, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s almost,” Citrine murmured, “inconceivable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Citrine, I don't think that word means what you think it means.
> 
> So this was definitely the most fun chapter I've written yet. I always like writing characters with excessive personalities, and Royal is excessively excessive.
> 
> G.O.U.S.: Grimm of Unusual Size, rat-esque


	12. We Are Not Entertained

“And you’re sure you don’t want to go looking for him?”

“Yeah.  I’m sure.”

“Even if it affects your assessment?”

“I couldn’t care less about getting marked down for this.  I’m not wasting my time on him.”

“…So even if—”

“Ware!” Citrine snapped.  “Do I look even a little unsure to you?”

Along with Torque and Ware, Citrine had formed her own makeshift team and headed off with them towards the arena.  After explaining with no small degree of frustration what had transpired between herself and Royal, she had tried to make it abundantly clear that she had no intention of going after her so-called “partner.”

“Okay, I suppose that’s fair,” Ware said, backing off.  “But you do realize you will eventually have to deal with him, right?”

Citrine sighed.  “Yeah, I know, but right now, I just feel like being pissed off at that guy.  Like, literally who just abandons their partner like that?”  Shaking her head, she said, “I can’t believe I’m stuck with him now.”

“Yeah, you missed out on both of these fabulous partnerships too,” Ware joked, gesturing from himself to Torque.  “Although, off the top of my head, I can’t really think of any colors that you’d spell with WC or TC.”

“Or CW or CT,” Citrine supplied.

“Hmm.  You know, if you and Torque got paired with a T and an L, you could be Team Kettle.  A nice coppery kettle to match your eyes.”

“My eyes aren’t copper.  They’re more like a dark-ish yellow.  Anyway, is there even another T and L in class?”

“There was a Tanager and a Lux back at Sanctum,” Torque supplied.  Then, she gently swung her toolbox into Citrine’s leg, bumping her forward a little.

“Hey!  What was that about?” Citrine asked.

Torque shrugged slightly.  “Just happy to see you.”

Citrine’s affection for her new friend swelled.  She almost hated to admit it after going so long saying that she was just fine on her own, but she really had gotten attached to Torque quickly.  Even if she didn’t understand her goals or everything she did, there was something very earnest and straightforward about her, and if nothing else, she was consistent.  Citrine could appreciate consistent.

“I’m glad you found me too.  Although,” she added half-jokingly, gesturing towards Ware, “you couldn’t’ve found a better partner?”

“Wh—Are you still mad at me?” Ware asked, half-defensively.  “I don’t even understand what the issue here is.”

“The issue is that you ditched me and lied to me,” Citrine snapped.  “You were happy to be all buddy-buddy with me in some back alley, but you were too ashamed to be seen with the country bumpkin in front of your adoring public.  You left me to find out on my own that you’re some kind of music super star!  I feel like I have every right to be mad at you.”

Ware frowned in concern.  “Is that what you think happened?” he asked.  “I didn’t go with you to the docks or tell you who I was because I didn’t want you finding out yet.  I liked having someone who didn’t have a clue who I was because I knew it meant you liked me for me, not for my fame or money or anything else like that.  Can you understand that?”

“Well, I…I…” Citrine sighed in resignation over his completely sensible point, and tried to let go of her anger.  “I guess,” she said.  “But if we’re gonna do this friendship thing, no more lying, okay?”

“Okay,” Ware agreed with a nod.  “Open book from here on out.” 

Torque smacked Citrine in the leg again.

“Also, apparently you’re a rich guy from your career,” Citrine pointed out.  “My ‘partner’ is some rich snob from his family’s business.  Is every other person at this school just like, ridiculously wealthy?  I thought Mistral was a poor kingdom.”

Torque opened her mouth to comment, then decided to bite her tongue instead.

"No, that's Vacuo," Ware provided playfully.  "Mistral is half poor and half criminally rich.  Mostly because of the criminals."

The trio continued south for some time until once again reaching solid forest ground, as well as a break in the trees that led up to the abandoned arena.  The arena was a wide oval with no apparent entrances, surrounded by a series of marble columns reminiscent of those built into Haven in various states of decay.  When she saw it, Torque attempted to simply stride forward, but Citrine held her back.

“Seems a little too easy,” she said, eyes locked on the arena.  “Ware, you wanna—”

“Already on it,” Ware said, drawing an arrow.  He sent it sailing to land a few feet before the arena, and before it had even touched down, another wave of G.O.U.S.’s had swarmed around it to investigate the disturbance.

“Huh,” Torque said.  “That kind of throws a wrench in things.”

“Citrine, you were able to take out a bunch of those on your own,” Ware pointed out.  “It wouldn’t be too hard for the three of us together to do the same.”

“Okay, but it’s a different situation here,” Citrine said.  “We’re not just trying to defeat the Grimm; we’re trying to defeat them while getting over a 30 foot wall.  G.O.U.S.’s already depend on distracting you with their numbers.  Adding a steep climb to that is kind of a recipe for disaster.”

“Perhaps we could be of assistance.”

The trio spun in surprise as behind them, they found another pair had arrived on the scene—the vest girl who had talked to Citrine about Skull, looking as impeccable as she had in that moment, and the lizard faunus who had wanted to fight him, looking beaten, bedraggled, and like she had seen better days.

“Greetings,” the vest girl said, giving them a polite nod.  “My name is Lux Baialban, this is my partner, Umbra Ire, and I believe you three are Citrine, Torque, and Ware.”

Citrine frowned, taken aback.  “How’d you know?”

Lux smiled enigmatically.  “I simply like to keep myself informed.”

“Also, that dude’s super famous and we literally went to school with that girl for years,” Umbra added bluntly.  Lux gave her an annoyed look for ruining her illusion of omniscience.

“I didn’t think you guys noticed me,” Torque said.

“Oh, we noticed you, alright,” Umbra snorted.  “Y’know, when you actually bothered to show up for class.”

When Torque didn’t reply, Citrine crossed her arms and stared down Umbra, her opinion of the girl going down by the second.

“Yes, well, I assume you three were about to make a run on the arena?” Lux said, trying to steer the conversation back.  “We’d like to join you in your effort.”

“Well, not to be rude, but why should we let you?” Ware asked, sounding as friendly as ever for asking such a thing.  “We could be perfectly capable of getting into the arena on our own without having to endanger ourselves for anyone else.”

“Hey!  Listen here, you sellout pretty boy!” Umbra barked, even as she winced over a wound on her left side.  “I’m not getting anyone endangered, alright?  I don’t need _your_ help.”

“ _Yes_ , we do,” Lux insisted to her partner hotly.  Turning to the trio, she added in a more diplomatic tone, “And you need ours, because I have a plan that can get us quickly through that wall instead of struggling over it.”

Citrine exchanged glances with her friends, then said, “We’re listening.”

“I’ve been a study of architecture in the past, and I’m familiar with the style of that structure,” Lux explained.  “Even though the entrances appear to be sealed, I can tell you where they should be, saving you the trouble of having to break through, say, 10 feet of stadium seating or an ancient Mistralese snack stand.  I would save this information for my own team, but I’m not much for the smashing kind of combat, and my partner—”

“‘My partner’ _what?_ ” Umbra snapped at her.  “Your partner’s just been carrying you through this whole swamp.”

“My partner has been unnecessarily engaging in close combat with every Grimm we see, regardless of whether we have the opportunity to fight, flee, or pass by altogether unnoticed by the creature, leaving her so injured that she can barely even carry herself!” Lux snapped back.  “So, do we have a deal?” she asked the trio after composing herself.

“Uh, well, thanks for including us,” Citrine said, “but we don’t exactly have a heavy hitter with us either.”

“Oh?”  Lux raised an eyebrow and looked at Torque.  “Don’t you?”

Citrine and Ware both look at her curiously.  “Torque?” Citrine asked.  “Is there something in your toolbox that could get us through?”

“Well,” Torque said, “I guess you could say that.”  And with one shake of her hand, the two ends of Výthisi expanded and the handle elongated, revealing her weapon to be a bright orange warhammer. 

* * *

 

The five students charged at the arena with Citrine and Ware running point, Lux coming up behind them to lead Torque to the right entry point, and Umbra bringing up the rear.  Ware sent out the first attack—a fire dust arrow that burned up a number of G.O.U.S.’s instantly—and when the first wave of them leapt at the group, Citrine sliced through them with Harbinger.

When they came close to the supposed entry point, Citrine, Ware, and Umbra all hung back, forming a perimeter and cutting down G.O.U.S.’s one by one to defend Torque’s efforts.  After pointing Torque at the right spot, Lux came to join them as well.  Citrine cut through G.O.U.S.’s at a distance in swathes and pulled energy from the grass to blast any that came too near.  Ware shot arrows of fire and electricity in order to destroy his opponents from afar and disrupt their formations.  Umbra pulled out her twin morning stars which, in their dormant form, held together and folded up like a pair of scales and used them to smash the skulls of the Grimm from up close.  Lux seemed to practically dance with her curved knives, moving her whole body as she swung them about in practiced, circular forms, using her momentum to slice through them.

And Torque hammered away at the wall, blunt and unworried by the battle raging around her.

“Citrine!  Get that one!” Ware exclaimed suddenly as a G.O.U.S. dashed past him. 

Citrine spun and tried to aim a blast of her semblance at it, but too late, she realized she’d already drained all the grass in her radius.  She stared in horror and screamed, “Torque!” as the Grimm charged at her friend mid-swing, unable to change the direction of her attack.  The G.O.U.S. leapt at Torque, latched onto her arm, and sank its fangs deep into her flesh.

Or, at least it would have if its fangs didn’t abruptly shatter, leading the Grimm to fall to the ground, shrieking in pain.

Citrine blinked and stared at Torque in wonder.  Her skin had suddenly taken on a gray, metallic sheen, apparently having hardened intensely.  She appeared completely unfazed by the attack, first finishing her swing, then taking another to smash the Grimm into oblivion.  Noticing Citrine’s stare, Torque shrugged and said, “Semblance.”  She added, “Door’s open, by the way,” then changed Výthisi’s form again.  The bulk of the warhammer spread into a large, rectangular outline that began projecting a shield.  When Torque pumped the shield out, a thick laser blast shot out as well, disintegrating a trio of G.O.U.S.’s trying to make it past the line.

Citrine thought she could finally see what Torque meant about testing her weapon's limits.

“Okay, we are going to have a serious talk about how cool your weapon is later,” Citrine said, grinning broadly, “but in the meantime, EVERYONE IN!”

Lux retreated from the line first, quickly dashing in through the new opening Torque was using her shield to keep clear of Grimm.  Ware went in next, followed more reluctantly by a slow Umbra who continued to fight the G.O.U.S.’s all the way in.  Citrine stood by, shepherding them all in and using Harbinger to keep them far from the entrance.  She was about to join the others inside when she heard something that made her stomach drop and her pulse race.

It was a scream.

A _familiar_ scream.

“Oh no,” Citrine groaned to Torque.  “That’s Royal.  I…”  Torque and Ware both watched her expectantly as Torque lasered away another cluster of G.O.U.S.’s.  “I…I have to go after him,” she admitted with disgust.

“I thought you said—”

 “Yeah, I know what I said, Ware,” Citrine snapped, forcing out her next words.  “But I’m not going to be a loser like him who abandons their partner.  I’m gonna find him and drag his ass back here in bits and pieces if I have to.”

“We could help you,” Torque volunteered.

“Thanks, but you’ve done enough already,” she sighed, killing another G.O.U.S. with a lackluster swing.  “You go on ahead.  I’ll get Royal and catch up.”

Ware raised his eyebrows, slightly surprised.  “That is a very decent thing to do,” he commented.

“Yeah,” Citrine grumbled.  “Sickening too.”

Torque gave her a bump in the shoulder with her shield.  Citrine was beginning to realize that was her way of showing affection.  Snapping off a quick salute to her friends as they barricaded themselves in the arena, she used Harbinger to vault herself over the colony of G.O.U.S.’s and took off at a run.  Royal’s continued screams in the distance lent her further speed and made her all the more determined to be the bigger person in this partnership, even if it killed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Actually, CTTL's a really cute team name. Someone remind me to design and upperclassmen Team CTTL later on. I've already got one upperclassmen team planned - Team MPVL - and team CTTL will help fill out the ranks.
> 
> Also, I'm really getting into writing these characters! I can tell just by how the dialogue flows and how they can interact with different people in different ways that they're really starting to feel fleshed out.


	13. Cards on the Table

One of the things Citrine prided herself on was her broad knowledge of the creatures of Grimm.  Admittedly, a lot of it came from Team RNBW’s experiences instead of her own and the extensive notes Budge had taken on them, but she had still studied up well enough to the point where she had identified nearly every Grimm she’d encountered, whether it was common or Mistral-exclusive, and she was usually able to name at least one of their weak points off the top of her head.

Then she saw the Grimm attacking Royal and was stumped.

“What in the good dust…?” Citrine murmured, staring at it.

Rising up out of a shallow pond was a massive Grimm—a non-descript black mass centered around a circular mouth with rows upon rows of gnashing and contracting razor-sharp teeth.  It had a seemingly endless supply of bone-plated tentacles, writhing about and slamming aside everything within its reach.  Held upside down by the leg in the grip of one of those tentacles was Royal, his face stricken with panic and his outfit looking ruined beyond repair.  His wide swings with his sword were keeping the Grimm from dropping him straight into its mouth, but he was still overwhelmed against the sheer amount of appendages.

And despite all the resentment Citrine felt towards him, she knew she couldn’t leave Royal to that fate any more than she could one of the commune’s clients.  This was her job now.

“Hold on, Royal!  I’m coming!” she shouted, running at the Grimm. 

“Cit-Cit-Citrine!” Royal cried in broken bursts as the tentacle thrashed him around.  “Help!”

Citrine charged an attack and blasted her semblance into the creature’s mouth.  Letting out a horrific squeal, it focused its attention towards the front, aiming its numerous tentacles like spears at the ground where she stood.  She dodged the first wave as they lodged themselves in the ground and batted away the second with her axe.  It was a dangerously thin line she walked between knowing when to move and when to attack in order to avoid either being skewered or having herself or her weapon grabbed, but it was an effective strategy for attracting them away from Royal.

Noticing the boy left hanging from a solitary tentacle to the side, Citrine called out, “What are you waiting for?  Cut yourself loose!”

Royal, frozen in place but for his uncontrollable tremors, whimpered, “I-I-I c-can’t.”

“What?  Why not?” Citrine demanded, attempting to tear Harbinger out from where it was wedged between two bone plates.

Given the situation, it was hard to tell if Royal’s face was so red because he was so upset or because all the blood had rushed to his head, but he still sounded like he was about to burst out crying.  “You were right about me!  I’m useless!  I don’t know anything about fighting Grimm!  I can’t do anything on my own and I don’t belong here!”

What Citrine wanted to shout at him was somewhere between “Of course I was right” and “Do I look like I have time to care about your problems?” but looking at Royal as well as she could between the dozens of tentacles out for her blood, she felt certain that if she yelled at him more, he would become even more utterly useless.  She needed a…a  _softer_ approach.

“That’s a bunch of bull, Royal!” Citrine shouted.  “I don’t care what you think; you’re not useless!  You’re here because you want to prove yourself, not because of your parents’ money.  You just need to take the chance to do it.  So, do it, Royal!  Prove yourself by cutting yourself free!”

Royal hesitated a moment, making Citrine worry both that her efforts had been in vain and that she’d embarrassed herself by spewing all that for nothing.  However, a moment later, his resolve steeled along with the determined expression on his face.  He took one almighty swing at the tentacle and sliced straight through.

“Yes!” Citrine exclaimed, though the victory was short lived.  Allowing herself to be distracted for a second, she was slammed backwards by a tentacle just as the triumph drained from Royal’s face as he realized from his position he didn’t have a landing strategy.  Citrine almost called out to him, but before he could hit the ground, a streak of red appeared on the scene—the red haired girl with the giant sword who had almost bulldozed Ware with her affection the day before.  The girl hardly took a second to effortlessly catch Royal, a bulky boy almost a foot taller than her, before running off with him in the opposite direction.

Citrine stared, caught off guard, and weakly called after them, “Hey…Hey, that’s _my_ partner!”

To make matters all the more confusing, Skull Muinarc dashed through the scene as well, shouting after them, “Stop messing around and get back here, Carmine!”  The Grimm, injured and uncertain, shot a tentacle at Skull to grab him but he batted it away with his scythe without batting an eye and continued on.

Not wanting to be left alone with the Grimm, now screeching and thrashing in an extremely agitated manner, Citrine picked herself up and started running after the most terrifying boy at school.

“Wheeheee!  Wasn’t that awesome?”

She caught up to the group some yards away, where an ecstatic Carmine had set down a woozy Royal to stumble about as Skull chewed her out.

“Who said you could just run off like that?” Skull snapped, looming over the unfazed Carmine.  “And since when does ‘Ignore that scream, you dunce, we’ve gotta find the arena,’ mean, ‘Yes, please, ignore our mission so you can play shining knight for some idiot who isn’t worth the time of day,’ you dunce?”

Carmine laughed and said, “Sorry, Skull!  But you know I can’t resist playing shining knight!”

“Actually, no, I don’t know, because I’ve known you for all of 20 minutes!” Skull shouted.  “How are you not getting that through that thick skull of yours?”

“Well, I mean,” Carmine snorted, “aren’t you the one who’s good about going through thick things…Skull?”

“ARRRGH!”

For a moment, yelling at his bubbly and giggly partner, Skull seemed significantly less intimidating and Citrine tried to use his distracted state to edge around him and get to Royal.  However, noticing the movement, Skull abruptly spun and fazed through her to get to Royal first.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” Skull demanded, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. 

“Wh…”  Royal frowned, still dazed and confused.  “Do you mean in this exact moment, or with my life in general, because I assumed that might be evident.  Also, if you could let go of my shirt, it’s—”

Skull shoved him backwards and growled, “Some piece of trash like you who can’t even defend himself doesn’t deserve to be here.  You better not even think of getting in my way for the next four years, or there’ll be something worse coming for you than a sanguiich.”

And perhaps it was the dejected look on Royal’s face.  Perhaps it was Citrine’s own sense of pride rearing its head.  Perhaps it was the fact that spending the day dealing with being thrown into the mud, fighting off G.O.U.S.’s, and literally facing her own worst fears was starting to make everything else seem tame by comparison.  Whatever the case, Citrine suddenly felt very much like confronting Skull.

“Hey!” she shouted, yanking Skull back and placing herself between him and Royal.  She bristled, saying, “Maybe he’s not the best fighter at Haven, but he got here just like everyone else.  And he’s my partner, so if you’ve got a problem with him, then you’ve got a problem with me.”

For a moment, Skull simply stared at her in disbelief.  Then, that manic smile cracked across his face and he began to pull out his scythe.  “You wanna go?” he asked with a quiet eagerness.

Citrine frowned.  “What?”

“I’ve been looking for anyone even close to half-decent here at Haven,” he said.  “Think you’re good enough to go toe to toe with me?”

Her fingers twitched out of instinct to defend herself, or perhaps even out of temptation to rise to his challenge, but before she could make her decision, Carmine interrupted.  Stepping up beside Citrine, the girl sang, “Byyy the waaaay, do you guys have any idea where the arena is?  Apparently Skully and I are both terrible at directions.”

“Carmine!” Skull snapped at his partner.  “Not the time, and not a nickname for me.  _Ever._ ”

“Skully,” Citrine snorted.  “Also, how the hell does no one else in this school know how to find _south?_ ”

“What, like you know any better?” Skull demanded.

“Yeah!  I’ve literally already been there, and then I had to come back for this guy.”

“Uh, Royal,” Royal supplied helpfully.  “It’s Royal Mauvello, by the way.”

“Great!” Carmine exclaimed.  “That means you can show us the way!”

Almost jumping to agree, Citrine had to remind herself that shepherding people around was no longer her job.  “Why should I help you?” she asked, channeling Ware instead.  “This dude’s been nothing but a pain in my ass, and I’m pretty sure he’s gonna try to shove that scythe in-between my ribs first chance he gets.”

“I don’t need help anyway!” Skull insisted.  “Especially not from Blondie Back-Down with baby’s first axe-gun.”

“Well, I—”

All their heads turned in unison at the sound of a horrific shriek and a rumbling in the distance, followed by the sounds of crashing trees.  “So, that thing is called a sanguiich, right?” Citrine asked slowly.  “Any idea if…it can travel over land?”

“As far as I know,” Skull said, his eyes fixed in the direction of the crashes, “yes.”

“Well, okay.”  Citrine spun and once again began hurrying south.  “Let’s get to that arena!”

All the way through the swamp and back to the forest, there was the sound of shrieking and destruction behind them.  The sanguiich wasn’t coming quickly, but it was certainly on their trail and didn’t seem intent on giving up the chase, which presented a problem when approaching the arena. 

“There’re G.O.U.S.’s all around there,” Citrine explained.  “The first time we broke in, we had time to smash down the wall and fight them off, but if we do that now, that giant Grimm might be able to catch up.”

“G.O.U.S.’s?” Carmine asked.  “I didn’t think those actually existed.”

“See?  I’m not the only one,” Royal pointed out excitedly.

“I don’t see how this is an issue for me,” Skull commented.  “I can just pass through the wall.”

“Yeah, and what about your partner?” Citrine demanded.  “Or, y’know, the people who got you here?”

“Hey, you were already so insistent that you guys belong here,” Skull retorted.  “I’m sure that means you can get through all on your own.”

“And what if you need help on the inside?  Then what?”

“I thought I made it clear I don’t need help from _anyone_.  If you can’t stand on your own, you don’t deserve to even call yourself a hunter.”

“Guys!  Arena ahead!”  Carmine pointed out.  “And geese incoming.”

 _A hunter,_ Citrine thought with disgust as she drew Harbinger.  _I’ll show you who deserves to be a hunter._

She and Skull leapt side by side into battle, both taking out waves of G.O.U.S.’s with their ranged melee weapons.  If she could have, Citrine would have tried to keep track of how many each of them killed, but she was too busy trying to find the entrance Torque had made again.  Not to mention that Carmine’s wild fighting style and the massive range and power of her own sword confounded all their numbers.

“This way!” Citrine said, trying to lead the group to the right.  “I think it’s—oh, crap.”  To her disappointment, though less to her surprise, she found that her friends had covered up the entrance with rubble.  Moreover, Torque—she assumed it was Torque’s handiwork—seemed to have somehow made it even more stable than before, meaning it didn’t budge an inch when Citrine slammed it with the butt of her poleaxe.

“What are we going to do?” Royal asked, holding his sword in shaking hands.

“Maybe I can slam into it really hard!” Carmine suggested.

Skull took one look at their predicament, then turned intangible and walked straight through the wall.  “I’ll see you on the other side!” he called in a carefree tone.

“Skull, wait!” Citrine shouted after him, but to no avail.  She could already hear the sanguiich growing closer in its approach and she had to alternate in slicing through G.O.U.S.’s and slamming the wall with Harbinger in an attempt to get through.  “Open!” she shouted at the wall, her frustration growing.  “Break open already!  Ugh!”  She resorted to shooting at the wall, and while no rubble moved, the attack did let something loose.  From the top of the wall, a rope fell down to them, and when Citrine looked up, she saw it was tied onto an arrow that had been hammered straight into the stone.

“Torque,” she breathed out in relief.  “Ware.”

“Whoohoo!” Carmine exclaimed, clamoring up the rope.  “Lifeline!  Ye-ha!”

“Royal, you up next,” Citrine ordered him.  “C’mon, hurry up,” she snapped when she noticed him hesitating.  “Or are you going to tell me you’ve never climbed a rope either?”

“Actually,” he said, offering Citrine his hand hesitantly, “now that it’s just us, I think I could—”

Citrine threw herself at him immediately, remembering that Royal was good for something after all—escaping.  He wrapped his arms around her and began to jump up and up, not with as much ease as he normally did, but still with enough power to easily carry them to the top of the wall.  Only once he had let go of her 30 feet out of the reach of the G.O.U.S.’s teeth did Citrine begin to breathe easily again.

“Aww, you guys cheated,” Carmine complained as she climbed up beside them.

“Well,” Royal said, looking out over the carnage below, “that was certainly an adventure and a half.”

“Yeah,” Citrine said, and that was about all she could manage.  “Yeah.”

With Royal’s semblance, it was less of an ordeal to get down from the wall into the old, long-overgrown arena.  It was set up with heavily cracked and eroded stadium seating and in the middle, where perhaps the spiritual ancestors of hunters had once fought for the entertainment of the public, there were a number of stands set up where the few remaining artifacts lay.

Skull was waiting there nonchalantly among the stands and gave them a broad, sneering grin as they approached.  “Looks like you made it after all,” he said.

This time, it was Citrine’s turn to confront him, grabbing Skull’s collar and dragging him down to face her.  “What did you think you were doing, going ahead without us?” she demanded furiously.  “In what kind of twisted world is that okay to you?  If you can fight to defend your comrades then you fight until the end.”

 “Oh yeah?  And where did you hear that one from?  Some outdated farmhouse story where the heroes all die together to save to poor, defenseless villagers?” Skull asked mockingly.  “Y’know, not everyone becomes a hunter because their mommy and daddy filled their head with all that fluff.  I’m here to prove I’m the best.  That’s it.”

Citrine pushed him away, too disgusted to even want to be that close to him.  “If that’s what you think’ll get you through Haven, then you’re the one that needs to shape up, not me,” she spat.  “Even Royal gets that better than you.  C’mon, Royal,” she said gesturing towards an available patch of artifacts.  “Let’s get this and get out of here.”

Royal and Carmine shared a brief look of concern and then followed their respective partners.  Catching up with Citrine who was looking over the different artifacts—a series of glossy stone tablets carved with different designs—Royal quietly and cautiously, said, “You know, Citrine, I would just like to, well, thank you for coming to my rescue earlier.  That was very good of you, even after I...I lost track of you before.”

She clenched her shoulders tightly for a moment, deliberating on how to handle this, then let out a breath and tried to let it go.  “It’s what partners do,” she said, “and whether I like it or not, we are partners now.”

“And, just for my own clarification so I know we are on the same page about me,” he added, “what you just said to Skull, and those things you told me earlier at the sanguiich…did you, by chance, actually mean them?”

“You mean, do I think you know more about supporting your team than him?” she laughed bitterly.  “You’d have to be _crawling_ to get under a bar set that low.  And yeah, I do think that you want to do better.  You try to show off even if you can’t back it up, and that’s dumb and dangerous, but I think trying to live up to your swagger could help you and maybe eventually make you suck less.”

Royal tilted his head and gave her a curious look.  When Citrine glanced back, she couldn’t help but think that he really did look different from the boy she’d first run into just the day before.  Maybe real life Grimm experience did that to a person.  “That may be the most honest anyone has ever been with me before,” he commented.  He then proceeded to ruin the moment by adding, “It really is refreshing to be out here amongst the common folk, away from all those servants bowing and scraping at my every need.  How do you do it, Citrine?  I can’t even imagine.”

She shook her head at him, but at least that time with a hint of affection.

Citrine and Royal ended up choosing a tablet with a portrait of a regal woman in a dress decorated with hearts.  Carmine showed off the tablet Skull had selected for them with four spades on it.  “So, what now?” she asked cheerfully, even as Citrine and Skulled were staring daggers at each other over her head.

“It appears there is a tunnel on the western edge of the arena,” Royal pointed out, and Citrine nodded in response to the question in his voice when he said “western.”  “Perhaps we could go through there for easy passage.”

“I doubt it’s going to be easy,” Citrine commented, “especially if Numbskull here decides to go off on his own with our light source, leaving us to fall down a mineshaft or something.”

“Well, don’t you worry,” Skull replied sarcastically.  “I’m sure under Miss Sunshine’s leadership, we can rest assured that when we find a painful death down there, we can at least all die together.”

“Guys, come on,” Carmine pleaded.  “Are we doing the death tunnel or not?”

There was a sudden rumbling and violent shaking as something heavy threw itself against the arena.  Then there was a horrific shriek.

In sickening unison, Citrine and Skull both said, “Death tunnel.”  Citrine then hurried to construct a makeshift torch from the materials on hand and led the group’s descent into the earth, even as the walls behind them began to crack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sobbing into a bowl of chicken biryani at 1 in the morning*  
> This was supposed to be a short chapter.......Damn it Skull........
> 
> But if it's any consolation, only 2 chapters left this arc! Also, ain't that funny how the teams seemed to just...naturally split into groups of four? Maybe a Team CRCS? Team Crocs? Team SCCR? Team Soccer? Team Sucrose? And those others, Team WTUL? Team...idk.
> 
> Sanguiich: a large, amorphous Grimm with a central mouth and several dozen bone-plated tentacles capable of grabbing and spearing unwitting prey


	14. The Test

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Improve my fragile sense of self-worth as a writer? Kudos or comment if you like?

“Hurry, Bolin,” Arslan called back to her partner.  “We’re almost there.”

Having arrived first at the arena and collected their artifact before any Grimm even began to congregate, Arslan Altan and Bolin Hori had been able to get in and out with minimal trouble.  Although they had encountered a few stray Grimm on their way east, the pair had been able to either defeat or outmaneuver them fairly quickly, giving them one of the cleanest runs of all the partnerships.

“Why are we hurrying?” Bolin asked, slightly winded.  “This isn’t a race.”

“Maybe not,” Arslan murmured, narrowing her eyes, “but I’m still not going to settle for less than best.”

“Ahh, students!” Wyltt greeted them a moment later as they arrived at the beach.  “Welcome!”

“Arslan Altan and Bolin Hori!” Quildrake called out, approaching them.  “Do you have your artifact?”

“Yes, Professor Quildrake,” Arslan said, slightly overeager in handing over the eight of clubs as Bolin caught his breath behind her. “Here you go.”

Quildrake briefly inspected it and then said, “You two are the first pair to complete the assessment.  Congratulations.”

 Arslan first stood up straighter, then bowed respectfully before giving Bolin a nudge to do the same.  “Thank you, professor,” they said together.

Hardly a second later, another three students stumbled onto the beach, puffing and out of breath.  Quildrake recognized them as Sun Wukong, Sage Ayana, and Scarlet David.

“We’re here,” Sage puffed out loudly.  “We made it.”

Sun, who seemed just as energized by his exertions as he did tired from them, ran up to Quildrake and started shouting, “Professor!  Hey, professor dude!  You would not believe the sh—stuff we saw in there!  First me and Neptune killed this ursa together, then we hooked up with those two to take on a bunch of G.O.U.S.’s at the arena—”

“I still don’t think those actually exist,” Scarlet called out behind him.  “I think they were just very small fellins.”

“Whatever, dude!  Either way, we actually rode part of the way here on these flying boar Grimm things because Scarlet hooked us onto one and then Neptune—wait, where’d that guy even go?”

“U-um,” Neptune stammered from where he was crouched behind a tree.  “Just, y’know, chilling here.”

“Aw, come on, dude!” Sun groaned walking away to try to extract him from his hiding spot.  “Not the water thing again.  You already made us take the long way around the swamp!”

After Sun was out of the way, Sage approached Quildrake and handed her their tablet, the ace of diamonds.  “This technically makes you the second team to arrive,” she said, accepting the artifact.  “Congratulations.”

“Thank you, professor,” Sage nodded.  “And I was wondering now, do we have the option to request teammates before you make your final decision?”

Quildrake nodded to where Sun was trying to rip Neptune off the tree trunk he clung to so desperately and said, “I assume you mean those two?”

“Yes,” Sage said.  “We worked well together in the forest, and I was hoping to work with them further at Haven.”

“Yeah,” Scarlet nodded as he dusted off the sand Sun had kicked onto his shirt, “they’re kind of a couple of loud idiots, but at least they’re the smart, fun kind of loud idiot.”

“I understand,” Quildrake told them, “and while we don’t usually go on requests alone when building teams, the fact that you’ve already worked with them in a real combat situation is a strong indication that you’ll be selected to work together as a team.  It’s more common than not that partners who meet each other during this exam end up becoming one team afterwards.”

“Really?” Scarlet asked.  “Even if they hate each other’s guts?”

“Ah, well,” Quildrake said, shuffling her feet, “there _are_ exceptions to every rule.”

* * *

 

“Do you think it’s a trick?” Carmine asked.

“A trick by who?” Skull demanded.  “The professors?”

“No, silly!  The Grimm!”

“I know I likely have the least amount of experience with Grimm here,” Royal said, “but I’m fairly certain Grimm don’t draw.”

“They _could_ ,” Carmine insisted.  “I mean, what else are they going to do down here all day?”

“Well…Grimm things?”

“Guys,” Citrine sighed, “I’m pretty sure this is just Torque telling us which way to go.”  She held her torch over the blue-green chalk-line arrow left on the wall of the cave at the forking paths they had arrived at.  “If we go this way, we can at least follow the path they took.”

“Is this that ‘power of friendship’ thing of yours at work?” Skull asked mockingly.  “Getting us to make the same bad decisions as idiots before us?”

“First of all, you don’t have a clue if their decision is any worse than the one you would make,” Citrine snapped, rounding on him.  “Second of all, it’s not friendship, it’s teamwork.  With people who just happen to be friends with me.”  When Skull continued to sneer at her, Citrine added, “You know, if you don’t like it, you’re perfectly welcome to take your own way.  There’s two whole paths here.”

“Oh no.  No, no,” Skull said.  “I’m _invested_ now.  I wanna see just how badly you manage to bungle this.”

“Joke’s on you!” Citrine exclaimed.  “Because we’re going to follow this trail left for me by my friends straight to safety, and it’s going to be great, and then who’ll be bungling?” 

She set off with a confident stride down the tunnel, solidly intent on proving Skull wrong, but had barely taken three steps when she heard footsteps approaching rapidly from further in.  Out of the darkness appeared torchlight, and not too far behind it, Torque, Ware, Lux, and Umbra.

“Wh—guys?  What are you doing back here?” Citrine asked, practically able to feel Skull’s smug stare on the back of her neck.  “Is it a dead end up ahead?”

“No, that’s the other tunnel,” Ware informed her as he attempted to catch his breath.  “We checked it and there’s just rubble blocking off the end.  Up ahead in that one is a—is a—”

“A much more literal dead end,” Lux supplied, clutching her elbows nervously.

“Yes.  There’s a giant Grimm waiting in a cavern up there,” Ware said.  “It must be two stories tall, it has these giant front claws that could crush a boulder, and it must be extremely territorial since it tried to crush _us_ almost as soon as we stepped foot in there.”

“I could’ve taken it,” Umbra grumbled from the back of the group.

“Or you could’ve gotten killed,” Lux hissed.

“We have to go back and take the land route to the beach,” Torque said.  “That thing didn’t want us getting past it.”

“So these are those illustrious ‘friends’ you’ve been boasting about?” Skull asked, taking in Ware and Lux’s un-combat ready looks, Torque’s toolbox, and Umbra’s injuries.  “Impressive.”

“You know, saying ‘friends’ in quotes every time just makes you sound like an ass,” Citrine said.  “And they were right to run.  It sounds like they found a grounder down there—an old one.  Those things are strong and fast and mean.  One of their only weaknesses is that they don’t see too well, but when we’re in small spaces like this, they can probably hit someone no matter where they swing.  C’mon,” she said, gesturing for them to move back, “let’s get out before—”

There was a shriek back up the tunnel that echoed and rang all the way down to them and a series of squelching and scraping noises as something approached.

“Um, Citrine,” Ware said nervously, placing a hand on her shoulder.  “You didn’t tell us you’d made another friend.”

“Yes, hello,” Royal said, rushing forward and offering a hand to Ware.  “That would be me, Royal Mauvello, pleased to meet you.”  

Ware stared at his hand dubiously.

“Oh.  So this is the idiot who was causing you so much grief,” Torque commented.  “He’s not as shiny as yesterday.”

“Citrine, did you tell them I’m an idiot?  That is absolutely uncalled for!”

“Shut up!  Everyone shush!” Citrine snapped as Skull began to cackle at her.  “Apparently that sanguiich that followed us can adjust to small spaces, so we’re not going to be able to go back.  Our only hope is to go ahead and hope all of us together can distract the grounder until we can slip past.”

“You mean _your_ only hope,” Skull pointed out smugly.  “I can just faze through its attacks.”

“So help me, Skull,” she growled, handing off her torch to Torque, “if you try to faze away again, I will faze you out of this world!”

“Now, that’s what I like to hear!” he roared, pulling his scythe out.

“No!  Not now!” Lux exclaimed, stepping up between them.  “You two can tear each other apart as much as you like tomorrow.  I’ll even throw Umbra in for good measure, if you’d like!  But for now, we’ve got to escape before we’re sandwiched between two behemoths.  Understand?”  Begrudgingly, Citrine backed away and Skull withdrew his weapon.  Lux let out a sigh of relief.  “Good.  Cooler heads, cooler heads.”

Another shriek from up the tunnel sent them running—Citrine and Royal, Skull and Carmine, Torque and Ware, and Lux and Umbra; eight fresh hunters-in-training who had been thrown into the thick of things.  Eight new students on the path to either victory or ruin.

The large red and yellow eye in a pitch-black, mole-ish face staring at them at the end of the tunnel hinted at the latter.

“Projectiles!  Blast it!” Citrine shouted, pulling out Harbinger as a rifle and taking aim.  Skull and Lux’s weapons shifted into gun forms as well and the three of them assaulted the grounder’s face with a barrage of bullets.  When it let out an agitated growl, Ware took a stance with his bow as well and shot a fire arrow straight into the bullseye of its yellow pupil.  The grounder roared in pain, backing away from the end of the tunnel, and Citrine shouted, “Go, go, go!” as she pushed everyone through, right beneath the Grimm’s thrashing head.

The grounder’s cavern was larger than Citrine had expected—wider than the arena they had just come from and tall enough that some natural light trickled in along with water from a stream or lake above.  For a moment, she felt encouraged about all the room this gave them to dodge until she realized that something else was larger than expected as well.  The tunnel out the other side of the cavern could not only fit the grounder, but accommodate a great amount of movement on its part.  In other words, even if they got through, the grounder could follow them.

“Shit,” she hissed under her breath as the grounder recovered enough to round on the group.  “Shit, shit, shi—everybody form up!  We have to injure this thing enough to slow it down.  Royal, stay close to me and follow my lead.  Torque and Ware, use hammer and ice to injure its legs.  Umbra, Lux, Carmine and—SKULL!  Get back here!”

Skull was already charging that grounder.  Without even going intangible, he avoided the first strike of its massive, clawed paw by sliding on his knees beneath it, then sunk his scythe into its side and tore open a long gash.

“Alright, everyone in there!” Citrine barked in annoyance.  “We hit it and we’re out before the sanguiich arrives."

Uncertainly, Lux tried to interrupt the charge, saying, “But what about—” but both Citrine and her own partner had already run ahead.

Hardly to Citrine’s surprise, the battle was a complete mess.  Take eight inexperienced hunters of varying strengths, strategies, and semblances, throw them together in a fight against a large, territorial Grimm with a mean left hook, and add the impending threat of another Grimm, and the chaos to follow is practically guaranteed. 

Torque and Ware were most effective working together, coming close with Ware’s ice dust and Torque’s hammer to disabling the grounder’s legs, but each time they came close to taking out one, it could simply swat them away with another.  Umbra’s injuries and Lux’s apparent unwillingness to engage in close combat rendered them almost completely ineffectual, with their work hampered further by Carmine’s haphazard fighting style that led her to be under someone else’s feet almost everywhere she went.  Without plant life nearby, Citrine had to rely on her weapon alone for battle and she was finding it nearly impossible to reach a blind spot on the grounder where she could get a blow in without being attacked mid-swing, all on top of trying to keep an eye on Royal.

And then there was Skull.

“Yeah!  How do you like that, y’dumb animal?” Skull cackled, slashing away at the grounder’s side.  “You’re not so tough.” 

He was doing exactly what Citrine would if she wasn’t tied to Royal, which was attacking sections and dashing away quickly towards another one.  His tactics were making him the only one landing real damage on the Grimm, but they were also revealing he had something in common with Carmine after all—they were both extremely reckless.

After hacking at the grounder’s hindquarter, he fazed through its back leg to avoid being trampled.  Unfortunately, it was only then he realized the Grimm had a thin, bone-plated tail as well.  The tail whipped into Skull, sending him flying forward, and as he groaned, trying to recover, the grounder raised a heavy front paw above him. 

Citrine shouted, “Skull!” and dashed forward.  She dove and shoved him out of the way just as the grounder’s claws crushed the spot where they had been a split second ago.  Predictably, Skull himself was less than pleased with the rescue.

“Get off of me!” he snapped, glaring at Citrine as she knelt beside him.  “I didn’t ask for your help.  I would have been fine.  I thought I made it clear I don’t need help from you or anyone else here!”

She bristled furiously and began to growl, “Why you pig-headed, ungrateful, sorry excuse for—” but an all too close shriek from the sanguiich caused her to look back in alarm.  It wasn’t to the cavern yet, but it would be soon, and as she watched the rest of the students struggling to land any sort of hit on the Grimm they already had, Citrine had to admit that they were losing badly.  These Grimm would overpower them in a matter of minutes if they had to fight them together.

 _Unless you can be the bigger person,_ a voice in her head reminded her in an annoying, sanctimonious tone.  Because she _could_ see one way out of this, but she couldn’t be in two places at once to make that way work.

“I know you don’t need help,” Citrine said through gritted teeth.  “But _they do_.”  She gestured back to where Lux, Umbra, and Carmine were still fumbling through the battle.  “Lux is too timid to get close to the action.  Carmine is so unfocused, she’s doing more harm than good.  And Umbra is a lot like you, she's ready to fight, but she’s so injured at this point, she needs someone to watch her back.”

Skull considered this for a second before saying, “I already knew they were incompetent, but what do you want me to do about it?”

“Lead them,” Citrine told him insistently.  “You don’t become the best at Haven just by being the best fighter.  You do it by turning a ragtag team of idiots into the best damn team on campus.  Unless,” she added, noticing the resistance in his expression, “you think they’re too much for you.”

Skull rolled his eyes, seeing through her goading but rising up to it anyway.  “Fine, I’ll get the idiots to kill the grounder,” he said, getting to his feet. 

“Wait!  Hold on a second,” Citrine said.  “I have a different idea.”

* * *

 

“Well, this is going rather poorly,” Royal commented.

“I’d noticed,” Ware said shortly as he ducked and weaved, trying to get close enough to the grounder’s legs to retrieve some of Cryptelum’s arrows.  “But thanks anyway.”

“You know, it’s not exactly how I imagined hunting would go,” Royal said.  “It seems a lot less heroic, a lot more disorganized.  How do you think we’re even going to get out of this?  Surely Citrine has a plan by now.  She seems fairly reliable for that ‘getting-things-done’ sort of thing.”

“Don’t you have anything else to do?”  Torque demanded as she used Výthisi’s shield to rebuff one of the clawing attacks.

“Ooh, you have a shield?” Royal asked excitedly, drawing Spurious Sovereign.  “I have—oh, Citrine!  You’re back!” he exclaimed upon her return, oddly side by side with the much despised Skull.  “Have you come up with a plan for us yet?”

“Yeah,” Citrine said, drawing Harbinger and aiming for a throw at the grounder’s face, “and it starts with us being a lot more reckless.  And with that thing.”  She nodded towards the sanguiich that had just pulled itself through the cavern entrance and was inflating itself back to its full intimidating size.

“Oh, that is horrifying,” Ware commented, getting a look at its tentacles and rows of razor sharp teeth.  “What are we doing with that?”

“Leading the grounder towards it,” she said, grinning cheerfully and clapping him on the shoulder.  “Now hop up on its head and let’s get this train rolling!”

And while she explained the plan to them, Skull jogged past her with Carmine, Lux, and Umbra in tow, taking a very different leadership tactic.

“Fall in line!  Fall in line, you trash!” he barked back at them.  “Today’s mission: be a slightly less worthless person.  Lux, if I don’t see you in battle, I’m giving you more to be scared of than some boneless Grimm.  And Carmine, you better damn well stay by Scales or I’m going to make the next four years of your life miserable!”

“Got it, boss!” Carmine laughed and the four of them headed off to bother the sanguiich.

Meanwhile, the others were already enacting their portion of the plan.  Through no small feat of agility, Ware managed to grab hold of the arrow he had lodged into the grounder’s eye in their first attack and used it swing up and situate himself on its head.  He readied a series of fire arrows and instead of trying to penetrate its thick, plated skull, he shot them off in a line—a bright glowing line, easy for even a one-eyed grounder to follow.

And if that wasn’t clear enough, there was also Citrine’s contribution.

“Come on!  Come on, grimmy-grim Grimm!”  Walking backwards before it, Citrine cheered like one trying to lead a dog forward, even as she repeatedly jabbed Harbinger into its rapidly deforming nose.  The grounder cried out and thrashed its head as it pursued her, but she remained steady as its target.  After all, she had support this time.

Sort of.

The Grimm lifted its right paw and attempted to bash Citrine away, but was blocked when Torque held it off with her energy shield.  She held her breath as it swung again with its left, only letting it out as Royal took the blow with the folded out and flattened shield form his own sword could apparently take.

“See this, Citrine?” Royal bragged, knocking its blow away.  “I told you I was perfectly capable of meeting Grimm in combat, given the proper circumstance.”

She had to admit that surprised her.  Even if he didn’t have combat experience, Royal was apparently quite strong, and he had finally summoned enough courage to put that to use.  However, Citrine was also certain that if she still made a joking comment like, “All I see is your knees shaking,” he would instantly regress.

“Keep up the good work everyone!” she called out encouragingly.  “We’re almost there!”

Behind them, Skull’s team was at work on their own part of the plan—distracting the sanguiich to keep it in place.  While Skull worked more independently, holding its attention from the front with blasts from his rifle, the other three worked together, disabling its tentacles.  Carmine was easily able to use her massive sword to fend off the appendages that went after them.  Lux was also putting to use her semblance, which allowed her to spit acid that weakened the bone plating enough for Umbra to rip them off.

“Hurry your slow ass up, Sunshine!” Skull shouted as he fended off another barrage of tentacles.

“We’re almost there!” Citrine called back, dancing close enough to the grounder that she could almost touch its whiskers just to entice it further.   _Almost,_ she thought.  _Almost…_   “Alright, scattter!” she shouted when she was nearly back to back with Skull.  Immediately, everyone fled from their positions except for Ware, who took another moment to shoot a lightning arrow into the sanguiich for good measure, _then_ ran.

Skirting around the grounder’s back, the eight held their collective breaths and waited to see if their plan had worked.  There were suddenly no more humans around the two Grimm, just overwhelming feelings of pain and rage, as well as the territorial righteousness of the grounder.  The grounder and the sanguiich charged at each other instead of the humans in a battle of horrible shrieks and bashing claws while the students made a silent retreat out the back of the cavern.

The silent victory, however, did not last for too long.

“Did we just—”

“I think we—”

“Did you see the way those—”

“Yeah, yeah, even though they were coming for us like—”

“And we actually pulled it off!” Royal shouted.  “We won!”

“Shhh!  Keep it down,” Citrine scolded him urgently.

“We won, we won, we won!” Carmine exclaimed, bouncing up and down excitedly.  “That was so awesome!”

“Carmine, shut up!” Skull snapped at her.

“Oh, what’s gonna happen?” Umbra snorted cockily, even as she leaned on Lux for support, her aura apparently all but spent.  “Those dumbass monsters are gonna tear themselves away from each other because we made a little noise?”

“I don’t care if you're feeling confident.  If we’re going to celebrate, we should do it later, and not tempt fate,” Lux said.

“Hear, hear,” Ware agreed with a sigh.

Unfortunately, the twist was too much of a temptation for fate to resist.  Back down the path, there was an almighty roar as one Grimm triumphed over the other and a rumbling as the grounder started thundering towards them.  The triumph they had all briefly shared was replaced in many of the eight by panic.

“What happened?” Royal demanded, his voice rising.  “That thing was barely distracted for a minute!”

“The sanguiich must have been a lot weaker than it by the end,” Ware pointed out, already taking stock of his arrows and noticing how few of his favorites—the heavy hitters like ice, fire, and lightning—were left.

“Skull, I told you to distract it, not maim it beyond fighting!” Citrine shouted.

“Hey, _I_ distracted it just fine,” he insisted.  “It’s Carmine and Umbra who went crazy on its tentacles.”

“What, were we just supposed to let it thrash us?” Umbra demanded with Lux nodding in agreement beside her.

The grounder was rapidly approaching and Citrine could feel her heart thundering along with its footsteps.  This couldn’t be it.  After everything that day, this couldn’t be where they were pushed too far.  This couldn’t be—

She felt a tap on her leg and looked back.  Torque was there waiting for her, her expression as straight and stalwart as ever.  “Citrine,” she said, “what do we do?”

Citrine gulped heavily, then steeled her expression to match Torque’s.  This _would not_ be it.  She wouldn't let this be it.  “We’re fighting,” she announced to the tunnel at large.  “We’re taking it on.  And this time, we’re doing it properly.”

Skull grinned at her broadly.  “Finally,” he said, “a fight I can sink my teeth into.”

“You take your team around its back.  We’ll handle the front,” Citrine said.  “Oh, and Skull?” she added sweetly.  “Try to avoid its tail this time, would you?”

He let out a bark of a laugh at that and gestured for Carmine, Umbra, and Lux to follow him, even as the grounder lunged up the tunnel at them.  “Carmine, Umbra, you’re on leg-breaking duty!” he shouted to them.  “Lux, you’re following me to the spine.”

The team split, Carmine and Umbra each taking a leg and beginning to pound away with their weapons to keep it immobile and distracted.  Meanwhile, Skull and Lux used the bone plates along its spine as handholds on their way up its back.

“Your acid semblance, use it to weaken this spot,” he said.

Lux complied and spit out a vile green liquid that instantly began to eat away at the plating.  The grounder shrieked and bucked its backside, sending Lux slipping and falling off, but Umbra was already waiting on the ground to catch her.

Remaining alone atop its back, Skull sneered and said, “This’s for humiliating me earlier,” and plunged his scythe through its spine.  The grounder’s back legs collapsed beneath it, useless and unmoving.

At the front of the beast, Torque and Ware were preparing their own attack.  As he nocked an arrow, Ware asked, “Are you sure this won’t hurt you?”

Torque, who had activated her metal-skin semblance and carried her hammer in hand, shrugged, saying, “Only one way to find out,” before charging on at the grounder.  She was slower than usual with her semblance and the grounder should have easily been able to swat her away in her approach, but when Ware shot a gravity dust arrow into her well-protected back, her weight decreased and she was blasted forward.  Torque brought her hammer down on the grounder’s head with an almighty CRACK.

The beast was injured, but not out, and there was still one more step to taking it down.

Or really, one more jump.

“As soon as I stop moving, we will both fall,” Royal informed Citrine as he carried her to the top of the cavern.

“That’s fine,” Citrine said, beginning to grin as they climbed.  “Just make sure I’m falling faster.”

“Yes, Citrine.  Here we go!”  Royal jumped and twisted mid-air, letting go of Citrine as he did and then falling away himself.  Citrine spun and clenched Harbinger tightly.  She had one shot at this.  One opportunity.  Stick this landing and kill the beast or miss and impale herself on the Grimm’s plates.

But of course, Citrine had been training her whole life to stick this landing.  It was not an issue. 

She brought her axe down on the grounder’s neck, carving through it like butter, and then rolling to a stop in the place where the Grimm’s body had once met its head.

There was a roaring in her ears as she stood up and looked around, maybe from the rush of air, maybe from the rush of exhilaration.  Whatever the case, the world now seemed extraordinarily quiet as the rest of the students stared between her and the decapitated Grimm, and Citrine wondered if she would sound the same when she spoke again.

This, however, was not a concern for Skull.  “Well, looky at you, Sunshine,” Skull said, roughly slapping her on the back as he strolled past, scythe slung over his shoulder.  “Only took you three other losers to get the job done.  Congrats.”

Carmine bounced after him, dragging her sword along with a horrible screech on the stone.  “That was fun, Cits!” she said, giving her a wave.  “Hope we can work together again soon!”

Umbra limped by next, once again supported by Lux, even though the twitching in her tail showed she seemed to have a little more energy back.  “You ain’t too bad in a fight,” she said, giving Citrine a wink.  “Hit me up back at Haven and we’ll try to bang out who’s better.”

Lux merely gave her a respectful nod and carried on with her partner.

Royal, who was rubbing his sore tailbone with one hand, threw his other arm around Citrine and began to pull her forward, bragging, “I _told_ you all Citrine would have a plan.  See now Citrine, I knew you were a good choice for partner.  Haven't I said this from the start?  I _never_ settle for anything but the best.”

“That certainly was some fight,” Ware said, striding up beside Royal.  “Definitely different from what I’m used to but, you know what?  I think I could get used to this life.”

“Too bad they disabled our scrolls for the test,” Torque grumbled, checking hers once again as she fell in step beside Citrine.  “If I could’ve caught that last bit on video, Citrine could have been famous on Hearth for that finish.”

“Ah yes, I can see it now!  Mauvello Heir Aids Ruffians in Battle for the Ages.  No doubt my family would have promoted it on their own net channels.  Good for PR to have such a heroic heir with such impressive skills.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s _exactly_ what would have happened.  You’re the big hero of this battle after all, Royal.”

“Hey, speaking of scrolls, can you say if Monarch's next version’s adding a headphone jack?  Because I’m _not_ buying headphones with a cord.”

“Well, actually…”

And as her friends prattled on, Citrine decided to keep her mouth shut and bask in the warm glow of the moment.  There would be time soon enough to discover how different she had become after this very long and very strange day.  For now, she was simply happy with the one change she was certain of—that she was no longer someone who had to stand alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah...Two eight person fight scenes. That was definitely an ordeal. But hey, it's over now! All that's left is to sort out the teams and we will officially be done with the introductory arc of Citrine's story! Stay tuned in tomorrow for the last chapter.
> 
> Grounder: a large, mole-esque Grimm with a plate spine and heavy claws; very territorial, poor eyesight  
> Fellin: puma-esque Grimm, have large tusks


	15. What Does That Spell?

The ceremony for inducting the new teams into Haven was held the very evening after the first exam concluded.  Arriving back on Haven’s island, the students were all given a few hours to clean themselves up, have something to eat, and have their injuries seen to if they needed medical attention, after which, each of them found their full team assignment on a bulletin board outside the dormitories. 

To the annoyance of Citrine, who at that point in the day was _really_ looking forward to a good night’s sleep, there was considerably more to it than that afterwards.  All of the first-years had to file into the main hall of Haven Academy where a number of ceremonial trappings had been set up and where all the professors and upperclassmen who had arrived that day stood watching them from the crowd.

After Quildrake once again congratulated the new students for their valor and gave another uplifting speech about courage or strength or forward thinking—whatever it was, it was mostly lost on the exhausted crowd of first-years—an electronic screen that looked out of place in the traditional hall slid down behind her at an excruciatingly slow pace.  As much as the students were excited to find out both the official names of their teams and which one of them would be selected as the leader, many of them also wanted to hurry this up and hit the hay.

But as long and strange as the day had been, Citrine was determined not to let it show, and as the rest of the teams were called up, she stood up straight and waited patiently in line for her turn.

Even if her teammates had a little trouble with that concept.

“Is this really it?” Royal whispered, staring around at the decorations in the main hall.  “This is the ceremony?  It’s very underwhelming.”

“I don’t see what’s wrong with it,” Torque shrugged even though she was paying more attention to her scroll than to Quildrake.

“It pains me to admit it, but I might actually agree with Royal on this one,” Ware commented.  “Just a few dusty old tapestries and no guest speaker?  They could put a little effort in if they’re going to make us go through this.”

“Guys, shush,” Citrine snapped at them.  “I wanna hear the team names.”

The first team had just stepped onto the stage, a group with some slightly unconventional weapons.  Among them, she could recognize the drone person and the frying pan girl from the day before.

“Aqua Cascade, Mint Irving, Tanager Bone, and Hibiscus Blume,” Quildrake announced as behind her on the screen went up portraits of the quartet, along with the letters AMTH.  “From this day forward, you will be known as Team Amaranth, led by Aqua Cascade.”

The aqua-haired girl with the frying pans let out a laugh and smiled, but seemed otherwise unfazed by the news even as the crowd cheered for them and the pink haired person gave her a congratulatory pat on the shoulder.

“Team AMTH,” Skull snorted, standing in front of Citrine’s team along with Carmine, Umbra, and Lux.  “I kicked half that team’s asses yesterday without breaking a sweat.  They’re gonna be out of here like _that_.”

Next on stage was a team that included the hoverboard girl and the boy she’d been teasing at the docks.

“Arslan Altan, Bolin Hori, Reese Chloris, and Nadir Shiko,” Quildrake said as ABRN rose on the screen behind her.  “From this day forward, you will be known as Team Auburn, led by Arslan Altan.”

Arslan, a girl with hair like a lion’s mane, tipped her chin up proudly, and seemed understandably annoyed when hoverboard girl Reese jumped onto her to tell her that she'd done a good job with that.

“She’s someone to look out for,” Torque commented as Team ABRN left the stage.  “Arslan’s come in third or fourth in the Mistral Regional Tournaments the last few years.”

“Really?” Citrine asked.  “That’s impressive.  Who ranked above her?”

“Well,” Torque sniffed, nodding to Skull, “he came in second all that time.”

“Eugh.  Why am I not surprised?” Citrine grumbled.

“And Pyrrha Nikos always took first,” Torque said.

She tilted her head curiously and looked around.  “I don’t think I know her,” she said.  “Is that someone here?”

“ _No_ ,” Skull abruptly snapped, without turning to face her, “because _Pyrrha Nikos_ ran away to Vale to be at a weakass school like _Beacon_ instead of coming here like she was supposed to.”

It was hard to tell from behind, but Citrine thought she could actually see a bit of color flushing into Skull’s pale face.  She didn’t know anything else about this Pyrrha girl, but if she could have this kind of aggravating effect on Skull, Citrine was certain she liked her already.

Sun and Neptune were up on stage next along with the green haired boy she had first seen Umbra attempting to pick a fight with and a slim, red-haired boy with an oversized jacket slung over his shoulder.

“Sun Wukong, Sage Ayana, Scarlet David, and Neptune Vasilias.  From this day forward, you will be known as Team Sun, led by Sun Wukong.”

The members of Team SSSN made a bit of a show as they left the stage with Sun flexing and flashing his abs in a sign of victory, Neptune sending out winks and finger guns at the audience, and Scarlet giving his jacket a polished and fashionable toss.  Even Sage threw out some warm smiles, and the audience ate it up with excited squeals and sighs. 

“Looks like you may have some competition for academy heartthrob,” Lux called back to Ware teasingly.

“They can have the title,” Ware said.  “If it gets people off my back, I don’t really care all that much.”

“Also, is no one going to talk about how their team name has like 50 S’s in it?” Citrine asked, frowning.  “Like seriously, what kind of name is SSSN?”

“Oh, no,” Ware joked.  “Not Team SSSN, they’re Team SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSN.”

Citrine laughed, even as she caught a dirty look from one of the upperclassmen.  Apparently, there was already some resentment amongst the student body that the two girls who had “managed” to get on Ware Sterling’s team didn’t seem to appreciate his celebrity status at all.

Next on the stage was Skull, Carmine, Umbra, and Lux, with Skull so confident about the outcome of the team name that he was already grinning wildly, and even Citrine had to grant him that.  Sometimes, the outcome for these names was just a little more predictable.

“Skull Muinarc, Carmine Baccata, Umbra Ire, and Lux Baialban.  From this day forward, you will be known as Team Skull, led by Skull Muinarc.”

Skull let out a loud cackle that was only matched by Carmine’s loud congratulations of him.  Lux briefly came over to shake his hand as well, though leaned in to whisper something that Citrine guessed had to do with only accepting his leadership conditionally.  Umbra looked flat-out annoyed.

And then it was her turn.  Their turn.  Citrine, Torque, Ware, and Royal all stepped onto the stage together as all the eyes in the great hall turned to them.  There was even more anticipated chatter with Ware up on stage and it was making her realize just how many people were out there.  Citrine felt an almost dizzying and overwhelming sense of self-awareness, which she quickly tried to calm.  She had already been through so much worse that day.  What was a little ceremony after decapitating a grounder?

“Royal Mauvello, Ware Sterling, Citrine Vermoss, and Torque Usi,” Quildrake said, staring down at her students as the letters RWCT went up behind her.

 _RWCT.  RWCT.  What does that spell_ , Citrine wondered in a brief panic that she’d been handed a jumble of random letters as a joke.

“From this day forward, you will be known as Team Rocket,” she announced, “led by...”

In the brief moment that followed, each of the members of the newly named Team RWCT had a thought about what might follow.

 _My name is first in the acronym,_ Royal thought.   _They must have made me the leader!_

 _Rocket must mean a grey color, closest to me_ , Ware thought, frowning.   _Could they have made me leader?_

 _Well, rockets are my area of expertise,_ Torque thought, _but they wouldn’t make me leader, would they?_

Citrine, however, was mostly just thinking, _I’m sure glad all of this will be over soon._

“Citrine Vermoss.”

Ware beamed at her ecstatically and ruffled her hair.  Torque did as well, but in her own, more subdued Torque-ish way by kicking her in the leg.  Royal was a bit taken aback for a moment, since he was very easily swayed and carried away by his own ego, but he soon reminded himself to give her a proud slap on the back.  They could negotiate the fine details of this whole “leadership” thing later.

Meanwhile, Citrine herself really had only one thing to say.

“Wait, what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.....funny story, I maaaay have accidentally named both my main teams after Pokemon villain teams. RWCT was just what came up as the most viable option when I was looking through the possibilities and it was some time before I remembered that Team Rocket was already a thing...Then, I did the same thing with Team Skull, which is probably more acceptable since they're the newest team on the block, but still.
> 
> So anyway, there you have it! Basically, Part 1 of Volume One of this hypothetical series is now finished. Gonna take a little time to try to plot out the details of what's happening next and then take it from there. Thanks for reading!


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